EXHIBITION: SAT 30th APR – SAT 28th MAY, MON – SAT, 12 – 6pm
PRIVATE VIEW: FRI 29th APR, 7pm
SAT 30th APR, 6pm: CARY LOREN IN CONVERSATION WITH JOHN SINCLAIR more info here.
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The short-lived Red Door Gallery (1963) and Detroit Artists Workshop Society were the first serious alternative, DIY, avant garde, co-op galleries to exist in the city of Detroit. The Artists Workshop Society was an artist run collective founded on November 1st, 1964, by John Sinclair, Magdalene Arndt (Leni Sinclair), Charles Moore, Robin Eichele, George Tysh, and ten others, who rented a house as a gallery and performance space on the campus of Wayne State University. They also produced their own books, journals and workshops. Through their various DIY ventures they introduced visiting avant-garde poets and musicians to Detroit, many for the first time.
This small independent and interracial group of poets, artists, and musicians were the seeds that would inspire a cultural revolution in Detroit, whose branches extended beyond its borders. This influence would find its way into jazz, psychedelic rock, heavy metal, noise and other experimental music, as well as poetry and the growth of Detroit’s new alternative presses.
The Detroit Artists Workshop exhibition features art, books, photos, films, flyers and Detroit Artists Workshop Press materials and reveals cultural roots and celebrates artistic sources, that can be followed to the art of Detroit and beyond today.
This exhibition is curated by Cary Loren.
Available during the exhibition: The Work Box: A Commemorative Collection from the Detroit Artists Workshop. It contains a collection of book reprints, interviews, postcards and artifacts from the Detroit Artists Workshop. WORK BOX is available in a limited numbered edition of 125 copies and was made in conjunction with the exhibition; Roots & Branches: The 50th Anniversary of the Detroit Artists Workshop at Mike Kelley’s Mobile Homestead.
JOHN SINCLAIR is a countercultural giant, poet, music critic, manager, promoter, and activist John Sinclair was born in Flint and raised in Davison, Michigan. He co-founded the Detroit Artists Workshop, the Artists’ Workshop Press, and the countercultural live/work commune Trans-Love Energies Unlimited, which served as a cooperative booking agency for revolutionary bands, including MC5. In 1968, with his wife, Leni, and Lawrence “Pun” Plamondon, he founded the White Panther Party in support of civil rights.
CARY LOREN is an artist, musician, writer and bookseller from Detroit.. In 1973 he apprenticed with New York City performance artist and filmmaker Jack Smith, and was a founding member of the Destroy All Monsters collective. His work has been shown at the Whitney Biennial of American Art in 2002; Printed Matter and Performa in New York City, 2009; the American Academy in Rome, 2010, and in What Nerve! Alternative Figures in American Art 1960 to the Present at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, Rhode Island in 2014.
This exhibition is part of our 2016 programme:
‘Collective Intention: Affirmative visions from communes, collectives and cults’.