Mapping the Murals in Detroit

The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth by Derek Farr

The Detroit Free Press had a recent feature on a new digital map of the city of Detroit’s murals:

Detroit’s office of Arts, Culture & Entrepreneurship (Detroit ACE) announced Wednesday it is partnering with CANVS, an art technology company, to identify all the outdoor art on city walls.

ACE Director Rochelle Riley announced the initiative during a news conference in front of Chroma, a co-working office space in the Milwaukee Junction neighborhood. The CANVS collaboration, which involves an iPhone application and an online map, is part of Mayor Mike Duggan’s “Blight to Beauty” campaign promoting public art.

Riley declared the upcoming season “the summer of Detroit murals,” and said ACE will begin enlisting “mural hunters,” an army of supporters who will help enter murals into the registry.

To better connect residents to murals, CANVS will create a digital map on the ACE webpage that will allow users to create tours of similar murals, or find murals they have seen, but do not remember where.

Lorren Cargill, co-founder of the startup, said one of his company’s missions is to better connect community to art. “When art becomes more accessible, it allows people to better connect with the city,” he said.

You can learn more about the Mural map and other efforts through Detroit ACE and head over to CANVS to get the app and sign up to be a mural hunter.

Derek took this shot somewhere in Detroit back in March. Where exactly? I don’t know but I’ll find it with this app someday!! See more in his massive Detroit gallery on Flickr.

More murals on Michigan in Pictures.

Diego Rivera’s Industrial Symphony

Diego Rivera Mural by Ashleigh Mowers

“As I rode back to Detroit, a vision of Henry Ford’s industrial empire kept passing before my eyes. In my ears, I heard the wonderful symphony which came from his factories where metals were shaped into tools for men’s service. It was a new music, waiting for the composer with genius enough to give it communicable form.

I thought of the millions of different men by whose combined labor and thought automobiles were produced, from the miners who dug the iron ore out of the earth to the railroad men and teamsters who brought the finished machines to the consumer, so that man, space, and time might be conquered, and ever-expanding victories be won against death.”
― Diego Rivera, My Art, My Life

There’s probably not a better monument to the massive role of labor in building Michigan & the United States than the Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry murals. Commissioned for the Detroit Institute of Art, these 27 massive paintings that cover the four walls of the Rivera Court at the DIA:

In 1932, Mexican muralist Diego Rivera (1886-1957) began illustrating the walls of what was then the DIA’s Garden Court. Using the fresco technique common in ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the Americas, Rivera created a grand and complex cycle of murals that portray the geological, technological, and human history of Detroit. He also developed an ancient context for modern industry rooted in the belief system of the Aztec people of central Mexico.

Ashley took this photo back in January of 2017. You can see more in her Detroit gallery & on her website!

Dancing in the Snow

Dancing in Snow by Bruce Bertz

Roadside America explains about the Gene Kelly Mural in Ann Arbor:

Artist David Zinn created a mural of the iconic scene in which Gene Kelly sings, dances, and swings from a lamppost in the rain. He created a fun illusion incorporating a real lamppost on the sidewalk. Gene Kelly’s daughter, Kerry Kelly Noviak, is a longtime residence of Ann Arbor.

Bruce caught a perfect shot of the legendary dancer engaging in a more Michigan appropriate dance yesterday. See more in his Ann Arbor 2020 album on Flickr.

Detroit House & Murals in the Market

In this New World Order, it might just be up to Beau Stanton to save us all, photo by Michael

I’d never heard of artist Beau Stanton, who painted this mural, but I’m glad I have now! The mural is called Detroit House and his website explains:

This multifaceted mural wraps around all four sides of a cinderblock house in a large open field. It was created in September 2015 for the first annual Murals in the Market Festival in Detroit, located at St. Aubin and Pierce on the border of Detroit’s Eastern Market neighborhood.

Murals in the Market is an annual event takes place in the fall and invites local and international artists to paint large-scale murals throughout the Eastern Market District. Click the link to read all about it!

View Michael’s photo background bigtacular and see more in his slideshow.

More great Michigan art and more winter wallpaper on Michigan in Pictures!

Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo at the Detroit Institute of Arts

Rivera Court – Detroit Institute of Arts, photo by Trish P.

Crain’s Detroit Business has a report on this Sunday’s DIA opening ‘Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit’:

When Diego Rivera and his wife and fellow artist Frida Kahlo were in Detroit in 1932-33, the worst of the Great Depression was upon the country.

A labor march had just taken place in Detroit, and four workers had been killed, said Mark Rosenthal, adjunct curator of contemporary art at the Detroit Institute of Arts, speaking during a media preview of the exhibit Tuesday morning.

Rivera and Kahlo, described by the museum as “an explosive couple” in their own right, arrived on the scene — he carrying a pistol, and she carrying a flask.

He romanticized Detroit, and Kahlo, who suffered a miscarriage while in Detroit, rejected the city, the DIA said.

Yet out of that time came pivotal work for both artists.

Rivera created the “Detroit Industry” murals on the DIA’s walls, which he considered to be his greatest work, Rosenthal said. And Kahlo, encouraged by her husband, began to create the paintings that would typify her career and make her famous.

The DIA’s upcoming “Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit” exhibit, which opens Sunday, will give art enthusiasts a chance to see who the artists were before they came to Detroit and who they were after, Rosenthal said.

Read on for more and get information about the exhibit that runs Sunday through July 12th from the DIA (including an opening lecture Sunday at 2).

View Trish’s photo bigger on Flickr and see more in her Detroit slideshow.

More museums and more art on Michigan in Pictures.

Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo exhibit coming to the DIA

Detroit Institute of Arts: “Detroit Industry” Murals, South Wall–Detroit MI, photo by pinehurst19475

Michigan Radio Reports that the Detroit Institute of Arts is planning an exhibition that highlights Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo and the year spent in Detroit. Between April 1932 and March 1933, Rivera created the Detroit Industry murals at the DIA and the museum will also show works created by Kahlo during that time.

The show is scheduled to run from March 15, 2015 to July 12, 2015, and you can click through to Michigan Radio for more including a film of Rivera working on the murals. Also check out photos of the Rivera Court murals at the DIA.

About this photo, pinehurst19475 writes: This section of the South Wall depicts line workers assembling tires, axles and wheels with a factory tour in progress. The Rivera murals were recently named a National Historic Landmark.

View the photo background bigtacular and see more in his Wayne State and the Cultural Center slideshow.

More art and more Detroit on Michigan in Pictures.