Four bold and dazzling new art exhibitions are currently on display at Bloomfield Hills’ Cranbrook Art Museum, with much of the wall space devoted to young, Black and Detroit-based artists.
“Skilled Labor: Black Realism in Detroit” focuses on a local community of artists who have developed expert skills in drawing and painting.
The exhibition was co-curated by internationally acclaimed Detroit artist Mario Moore and Cranbrook Art Museum chief curator Laura Mott.
“Part of my job as a curator is really to pay attention to what’s happening in the city — not just individual artists, but what multiple artists are doing,” said Mott. “So I went to Mario, who I consider an expert both in figuration but also someone who really understands the community, knows multiple generations of people, the people coming up and the people that are mentors of his peers, of his mother’s. He has the Detroit knowledge in addition to being an incredible painter with an international career.”
The 20 artists featured include Christopher Batten, Taurus Burns, Cydney Camp, Ijania Cortez, Cailyn Dawson, Bakpak Durden, Conrad Egyir, Jonathan Harris, Sydney James, Gregory Johnson, Richard Lewis, Hubert Massey, Mario Moore, Sabrina Nelson, Patrick Quarm, Joshua Rainer, Senghor Reid, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Rashaun Rucker and Tylonn J. Sawyer.
Moore said their original list was hard to narrow down to just 20 names.
“The list grew to over 50 artists because I was thinking about artists from the 19th century and Detroit-based historical artists, and it really just became too much. So we pared it down and considered artists working within the last 10 years with significant work, really kind of pushing figuration and conceptual figuration forward, and that’s how we came to the list of 20 artists.
“But one of the names from those 50 was LeRoy Foster. We decided because he is so significant, we wanted to give him his own exhibition as part of the whole concept.”
The show of works by Foster (1925-93), known as “the Michelangelo of Detroit,” is the artist’s first solo museum exhibition. Best known for his large Frederick Douglass mural at the Detroit Public Library’s Douglass Branch, Foster studied art at Cass Tech High School, the Society of Arts and Crafts (now the College for Creative Studies) and, it is believed, at Cranbrook Academy of Art.
“He’s significant,” said Mott of Foster. “He’s completely underrepresented in our local art history and art history in general. He had never had a museum solo show before, and so this was really important for us. If we think about ‘Skilled Labor’ being a result of the family tree, LeRoy Foster is a really important pillar for many of these artists. It was kind of a way for us to pay dues to all the artists that came before.”
The third current Cranbrook exhibit, “Carl Toth: Reordering Fictions,” was curated by assistant curator Kat Goffnett and examines various bodies of work created over Toth’s four-decade career. He served as artist-in-residence and head of the photography Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art from 1972 until 2007 and shaped generations of students before his death last year.
The fourth show, “Ash Arder: Flesh Tones,” is curated by Andrew Ruys de Perez, the Jeanne and Ralph Graham Curatorial Fellow, with support by Mott. Arder is a transdisciplinary, research-focused artist from Flint whose work investigates ecological and industrial systems. The exhibition is the second installment of Cranbrook’s Fresh Paint series, highlighting new work from Detroit-area artists.
“My hope is that everyone who sees (the shows) takes away something different,” Moore said. “And that it broadens their mind, and their understanding of the talent that is within Detroit.”
“Carl Toth: Reordering Fictions” and “Ash Arder: Flesh Tones” will remain on display until Feb. 25. “Skilled Labor” and LeRoy Foster’s solo show will close March 3. For more information or to arrange a visit to the museum, visit www.cranbrookartmuseum.org.
Contact Free Press arts and culture reporter Duante Beddingfield at dbeddingfield@freepress.com.
