Steve Glazer, Professor of Fine Art and
Gallery Director at Henry
Ford Community College, and
Carl Kamulski, Professor of Fine Art at
Wayne County Community College and former Michigan
Gallery Executive Director, jointly announce a
"Final Tribute" to Michigan Gallery.
The exhibit,
"2010" Motorcity Revue"
featuring 38 Detroit Artists will open 6:00-8:00 PM
Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at the Sisson Gallery at
Henry Ford Community College and close with a
multi-faceted reception 6:00-8:00 PM on March 5, 2010.
2010
Motorcity Revue
Reception, Wednesday, January 27, 2010
6:00 PM-8:00 PM
Sisson
Gallery
Henry Ford Community College
Hours: M-Th: 10
AM-6 PM
Friday: 10 AM-3 PM
5101 Evergreen,
Dearborn, MI 48128
For more
information please contact
Steve
Glazer at: 313.845.6485 or 313.845.6476
"2010 Motor City Revue"
1. Richard Brinn (Co-Founder) "Satchels and Bags"
others
2. Cyndy Weeks "Bomb My Boat" "If You
See Kay"
3. Roy Steyskal (Co-Founder) First
Show
4. Jim Lutomski "UFO" "Electric
Glass" others
5. Dan Graschuck "Boys of Summer"
"Artist's Interpret Fantasy"
6. Marianne Letasi "Out of Solitude"
7. Michelle Spivak Perron (Gallery
Director) "Signs of Life"
8. Tom Rudd "Michigan Stone"
9. Art Cislo First Show
10. John Murphy "MPA Show" "Earthen
III"
11. Jim Dozier "MUCK-FUCK" (Males/Females
Understanding Carnal
Knowledge)
12. Carl Kamulski (Co-Founder) "Motor
City Review" "Electric Glass"
13. Sergio DiGiusti "Carbonara"
"Innocent Visions" "Apocalypse" others
14. Lowell Boileau "Air" "Micropointillism"
15. Steven Goodfellow
"Micropointilism"
16. Jim Nawara "Water"
17. Robert Bielat "Michigan Poured
Metal"
18. Gilda Snowden Various Shows
19. Joe Zajac "Clay" early show
20. (Bradley Jones) Studio at MG
"Michigan Figurative"
21. Mark Chatterley (Various)
22. Tom Phardel "Sharon Que and Tom
Phardel"
23. John Egner "John Egner Picks
Detroit"
24. Dave Roberts "The Abstract
Realists"
25. Sharon Que "Accumulated
Knowledge""Sharon Que/Tom Phardel"
26. Robert Quentin Hyde ("Robert and
Ronald Quentin Hyde" others)
27. Sandy Zenisek ("Full House")
28. Jim Pallas ("Motorcity Review")
29. Charles McGee ("Artists Against
Apartheid")
30. Rolf Wojciechowski Various Shows
31. Iva Turner ("Up with Downriver"
and others)
32. Bill Sanders ("Michigan Friends
of Photography"
33. Vito Valdez (Dia De los Muetros,
others)
34. Jerome Ferretti ("Up with
Downriver" and others)
35. Susan Aaron-Taylor ("Susan Aaron
Taylor/Victoria Stoll")
36. Hugh Timlin ("Starting Point
Stone"
37. Meighen Powell Jackson (Various)
38. Russell Taylor (Performance
"Satori Circus")
2010 Motorcity
Revue
The 2010
MotorCity Revue is a tribute and farewell to a most
unusual place, Michigan Gallery. The thirty-seven
artists represented in this show are just a representation
of what the gallery was and remains in the memories of
thousands who showed work, curated shows, attended openings
and special events, joined in life drawing and other
sessions, drank cold beer in the bar, played pool, ate
homemade soup, performed in bands and other performance
venues, traveled to other locations for exchange exhibits,
played softball on the Michigan Gallery Grizzlies,
contributed to countless fundraisers, donated time and skill
to keep the place moderately well maintained, were married
there, met to rem ember friends lost, believed in the
Gallery--and became part of its fabric.
How did
all this all happen in a rundown building on an isolated
part of Michigan Avenue one mile west of Tiger Stadium?
I'm not completely sure--perhaps because of some perfect
circumstances--perhaps just by chance.
The
Gallery was an artist run space; this in itself created an
energy. We owned the building, so anything could
happen. The building was isolated from other commercial
places so authorities didn't notice or care what we did.
The gallery space was 2,400 square feet, plus the bar had
another 1,200 square feet of exhibit and performance
space. The basement totaled another 1,800 square feet
of space for the Sub Sea Level Gallery. As the Executive
Director, I was always willing to take chances. Most
importantly, there was the support of the metropolitan
Detroit art community. It was a
most unusual place--so unusual that some thought of the
Gallery as a way of life.
I knew when I agreed to curate
another Motorcity Revue that I would not be able to
fully reflect Michigan Gallery's vision and history. There
were so many who were part of its fabric. So many
artists, so many shows, so many people, over its
twenty-seven year history. Any review might upset or
offend some who should be included. I have spent many
months contacting artists and working with Steve Glazer at
the Sisson Gallery to develop a quality show that represents
the Gallery's history. All of the artists w ho made the
Michigan Gallery a phenomenon deserve recognition , and this
show is a salute and tribute to them.
Carl
Kamulski, Curator, 2010 MotorCity Revue
I remember the
October evening quite vividly. It was 1988 and I had just
been back in Detroit a month or so. I had read about an
artist's run space, Michigan Gallery. There was to be a
reception for the opening of the exhibition, Micropointalism, a style of painting that a couple of
Detroiters had developed in which they took the concepts of
Seurat to the extreme. I hooked up with a friend, and
ventured to the then unknown.
By the end of
the evening, I was hooked. I had quickly realized what the
Detroit art scene, along with scores of Detroiters, already
knew. Michigan Gallery was it. It was not as "sterile" or
"clean" as other major exhibition spaces, especially those
either connected with educational institutions or those that
occupied the ritzier northern ‘burbs. But what Michigan
Gallery lacked in comparison to these other spaces, it made
up in spirit and with soul.
My own pursuit
of a full time college teaching position took me away from
Detroit less then a year later, but during the time I was
around, I went to every exhibition Michigan Gallery had. In
fact, I often journeyed back a second or third time to get a
more thorough viewing.
I think Carl
Kamulski, the long time executive director of Michigan
Gallery will be the first to say that not every exhibition
that was mounted in the space was great. But every one I
saw during the 1988-89 season was. In fact, I would bet
that every exhibition mounted throughout the twenty plus
year run of the space was great, because I would bet that
each one was filled with the spirit and soul that I
encountered the first time I was at Michigan Gallery.
When I
returned to Detroit in 2004 to accept a teaching position at
Henry Ford Community College, it was, in part, to be part of
the metro-Detroit community. Since becoming Director of
Exhibitions at the college, I have looked for ways to mount
exhibitions that were not only educational for our students,
but also connected with the community at large. When I read
a suggestion on Stephen Goodfellow's "Tribes of the Cass
Corridor" webpage that someone should think about putting
together some kind of tribute to Michigan Gallery, I
immediately stepped forth. What better way to focus
energies then to combine things that are dear to me: the
Sisson Gallery at Henry Ford Community College, the
metro-Detroit community, and memories of Michigan Gallery.
Over the past
year or so, Carl Kamulski and I have met a few times,
exchanged countless emails, brainstormed together as well as
separately, and probably cussed each other out a few times
in private as we wondered what in the world have we had
gotten ourselves into. But we have made it. We have put
together what I hope is one of the most exciting exhibitions
Michigan Gallery has seen. We present the Motor City Revue
2010!
Steve Glazer
Instructor of
Art
Director of
Exhibitions
Henry Ford
Community College
The Sisson
Gallery is located in the MacKenzie Fine Arts Building on
the main campus of Henry Ford Community College, located at
5101 Evergreen in Dearborn, MI. The gallery is will be open
from 10am - 6pm on M,T,W and TH and 10am - 3pm on F
throughout the exhibition. The gallery may also be open by
special appointment during "off" hours. For further
information, contact Steve Glazer at 313-845-6485,
313-845-6476 or 313-671-2048 (during non-business hours) or
sglazer@hfcc.edu.
