Thursday, January 12, 2012



POACALYPSE : APOCALYPSE will descend and decrease with loudness into your evening @ detroit contemporary 5141 Rosa Parks Blvd Detroit, MI 48208

The artists showing in the apocalypse show are not just local or national… they’re universal and here to let you know that the Gregorian Calendar’s translation of the Mayan Calendar is 11 months off. Come join the commemoration January 21st 2012, at 6PM – 11:30PM.

In 2012, the detroit contemporary will act as a place for artists to seek refuge and conduct their own form of arbitrary confinement. Starting with the apocalypse show (as if the apocalypse started here) spectators will arrive expecting to enter into the end of the World then leave feeling like the World just ended… and that is now the beginning.


This new direction of the detroit contemporary will advance the foundation that lies between farm as culture and art as culture. Stay tuned-in to future exhibitions and see how it all happens.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Clearly not all about Detroit, part II.



A series of outsider movies that actually just might….

dogtoothAs an artist in residence for Expodium, the Netherlands, Friso Wiersum has been in Detroit since the end of October. As you can read at the blog www.newstrategiesdmc.blogspot.com he looks in amazement at the attention this town devotes to itself. Not an object producing artist himself he proposes a series of films. Not touching on Detroit directly, the themes in the movies touch upon developments within the city we love. Friso will introduce the movies and themes, and invites you for an evening of food & film, thoughts & talks. Theme sequence: utopia, social welfare, revolt and nostalgia. Free and open to teh public!

Date: 11/29/11

8 pm [doors open 7.30 pm]
Dog tooth [Greece, 2009]. A bizarre fairytale, an utopia turned dystopia. On a family living outside of what others always see as normal. How do you want to see your [forthcoming] kids judging you?

Date: 12/06/11

8 pm [doors open 7.30 pm]
Simon [Netherlands, 2004]. A comedy that deals with themes as euthanasia, homosexuality, friendship, drug use. A semi-critical view on a society in which one is invited to believe one can decide on all aspects of life. What is your life, what is
theirs?

Date: 12/13/11

8 pm [doors open 7.30 pm]
la Haine [France, 1995]. A day in the life of three kids in Paris. It's been a long hot summer already. A movie about inclusion and exclusion, city planning, 'banlieues' and city centres. What city you choose to live in?

Date: 12/20/11

8 pm [doors open 7.30 pm]
Goodbye Lenin [Germany, 2003]. On nostalgia as a survival tool, on rewriting history, and for some laughs on capitalism.

All screenings at the detroit contemporary,

5141 Rosa Parks, Detroit
http://www.detroitcontemporary.com


Expodium, Utrecht

http://expodium.nl/


free entrance

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Friso Wiersum Resident Artist From Expodium




Academics
Friso Wiersum graduated at University Utrecht in 2001. During his studies Contemporary History he also took courses in journalism, Russian and philosophy. The studies included an Erasmus programme at the Rheinische Wilhelm Friedrich Universität Bonn, Germany and a Socrates research semester at Université Michel de Montaigne Bordeaux IV, France. Following his studies he was invited to a historical research in the Bibliothéque National in Paris. From 2001 to 2003 he was an editor of Skript - historical magazine, Amsterdam.

Working career
Friso started his job life at GroenLinks as project assistant International Office. He continued working at Tumult - heading the portfolios ‘Politics’, ‘Architecture & City Planning’. During these years, 2004 – 2010, Friso free lanced in various assignments: from cultural programming the Globalisation festival or producing a series of community events for Partizan Publik to organizing public lectures in the ‘Failed States’ series. From May 2009 onwards Friso is project leader ‘Arts in Conflict’ at the Treaty of Utrecht 2013.

Moderator
Friso Wiersum moderated and hosted debates, presentations and events on cultural policies, international politics, and city planning for amongst others: Balkan Buro, Casco, Eastern Neighbours Film Festival, Expodium, Festival aan de Werf, HKU, Movies that Matter film festival, Netherlands Architecture Institute [Publishers], Prince Claus Funds and Rhizomatic.

Side Facts
Ever since high school Friso was involved in European exchange projects, often focusing on South Eastern Europe. He published some articles. He is a fanatic baseball player. And by the name of dubcovsky he is a dj in Kako Da Ne collective.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Siri Hermansen October 2011 Resident Artist





Siri Hermansen (b. 1969) is a video, photographer and Installation artist, based in Oslo. Recently she has focused her artistic practice on the aftereffects of abrupt social, economical or political changes in society. Chernobyl, the Ai Weiwei village; Caochangdi in Beijing and Pyramiden; a deserted Russian coalmine city in the arctic desert of the Spitsbergen are some of the sites she has explored artistically. Her artistic method resembles a form of shared anthropology where the outcome of the material is unpredictable and is dependent on the interrelations created on location, and the artists personal experience of the place.

She also questions how we deal with the fact that everybody sees and hears from a different perspective, and how this influences the way we comprehend reality. Siri Hermansen has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo, The Stenersen Museum in Oslo, Today Artmuseum, Beijing, Moscow Museum of Photography and Tsedeka in Moscow.

Siri Hermansen is curently a research fellow at the National Academy of the Arts in Oslo.




" Hello! " to yesterday .
what do you say?


nothn, nothn at all...





Sunday, June 19, 2011


RESIDENT ARTISTS ARRIVE
@ THE
YES FARM






Camila Botero's most recent work focuses on the relationship between humans and the environment – affected by circumstances imposed on us by this critical moment in time. Her specific interests are high-impact issues such as ecological effects, geopolitics, and territorial affairs. She uses different techniques and materials to explore the multiple perspectives and experiences of what it means to be human in our accelerated, digital age.

Her
multidisciplinary work raises questions about the mutability of nature and reality, of genetics and science, and how technology is rapidly and irreversibly changing the world and changing its people.

www.camilabotero.net







Photo by Lev Ilizirov

Chris Meighan (1979) is primarily concerned with the personal relationship which individual people have with society. History is a particularly important element as well as the development of societies from their past dynamic and undeveloped state into the static, superficially free and open society of today. He works with live performance and video.



AND


Jonas Ohlsson



Jonas Ohlsson's artwork combines elements from a chaotic collection of cultural, popular and personal references, using drawing, sculpture, installation, text and music (often within the same show) to create symphonies with multi-layered meanings. His background as an Electro musician seeps into his artistic process as, like a DJ, Olhsson uses the instinctual qualities of free-association and a working knowledge of the public to spin his messages and mediums together into visual rhythms that leave the viewer hot and sweaty and begging for more.

"The work develops itself; I can’t plan it. I can have a basic idea of where I want a drawing to go, but it’s like a football game: you can plan all you want, but when the game is on things happens by themselves."

For examples of Jonas' work, click HERE





Tuesday, April 19, 2011

From the VOICE OF DETROIT :

The city's independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

YOUNG MOTHER DESCRIBES OCCUPATION OF CATHERINE FERGUSON ACADEMY


( Click on the title to read this article )



Tuesday, April 12, 2011

SAVE THE CFA!

Photograph by Garrett MacLean (click to enlarge)

----HELP SPREAD THE WORD---

Pregnancy is a leading cause of teenage dropouts in the United States.
For over twenty years, The Catherine Ferguson Academy in Detroit, Michigan has acted as an educational and community center for pregnant and parenting teen mothers, and their children in the Detroit area. Catherine Ferguson Academy will be one of 18 schools to close or become a charter unless we speak up and show up in numbers. CFA provides services like WIC, healthcare, and early education from birth through pre-K. Without this support, most high school aged mothers do not graduate. In addition to being a successful school, CFA is an anchor to the community of young mothers.

" These girls are working too hard to get their education, they shouldn't have to worry about their school closing. Future generations depend on the success of these women."

Support Pregnant Teen Mothers By:

  • Speaking for them in a town hall meeting on the DPS Renaissance 2012 Plan:
Tuesday April 12th @ 6:00PM
Ketterine High School 6101 Van Dyke Ave in Detroit

Wednesday April 13th @ 6:00PM
Cody High School 18445 Cathedral Street in Detroit

  • Show up in Numbers to the final decision meeting on Tuesday May 3rd
4:00PM @ the Douglas Academy for Young Men

2001 W. Warren St. Detroit

Tuesday MAY 3rd Demonstrate your support

( ::: wear a pillow under your shirt as a visual demonstration if you're not already pregnant ::: )

Gentlemen, you too!


Catherine Ferguson was a freed slave who founded a "Sabbath School" where freed black slaves and other working poor learned to read and write, cared for orphaned children, and provided childcare allowing women to work again. She was described to have responded to "the needs of the poor in an era which the poor were notably neglected".



Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Matthew Moore- Digital Farm Collective





Matthew Moore is an Arizona based artist and 4th generation farmer. His work examines issues about there food comes from, how and where it is grown, and the changing landscape of farms colliding with suburbs. Check out his newest project The Digital Farm Collective.