My daughters are, like many children, really interested in art. I've had lots of conversations with them lately about what constitutes art, especially as technology vastly expands artists' ability to create. My wife is still angry with me for telling the girls about Andres' Serrano's 'Piss Christ', in no small part because my oldest girl brought it up in front of her Sunday School teacher. (At least I've kept Robert Mapplethorpe's later work from their attention. Our church is pretty progressive, but that might raise some eyebrows.)It was with the perspective of a child, then, that I encountered The Heidelberg Project, a 25 year-old effort that's turned two blocks of inner-city Detroit into a colorful folk art installation. Artist Tyree Guyton, a native of the neighborhood, mixes found objects, sculpture, bright paint, and words to "demonstrate the power of creativity to save lives." In addition to continually adding to the work, Guyton and his team offer tours and work with local children to demonstrate a different vision for their largely blighted community.
The City of Detroit tried twice in the 1990s to destroy the project razing buildings in both cases. And each time, Guyton picked up the pieces and kept at it. Now it's a protected landmark, and one of the city's leading tourist attractions.
In the first installment of another recurring feature destined not to recur, Tyree Guyton is G:TB's first Artist in Virtual Residence. He couldn't join us in person today, but his people did send word that he's humbled and flattered by this prestigious honor. More of his story below.
we are headed to "the whitney" today. and i'm not talking about the large bbq eating norfolk landmark, i'm talking about the art museum in nyc.
ReplyDeleteand my son ian is something of an artist-- so i will snap some photos and try to do a photo collage type post . . .
gheorghe: the children's art gallery
ReplyDeleteI would contribute some art from my 3 y/o, but his handwriting and his art suck. His letters suck and his attempts to draw people and "pussycats" are brutal. You can't even tell what the hell it is.
ReplyDeleteYeah, my daughters can only draw circles and they aren't even really round. I'll post them over at the Wheelhouse the week after never.
ReplyDeleteArt is dumb.
I'm surprised Rob regularly attends church.
And there's whipped, there's really whipped, and then there's having a joint facebook account with your wife. Some clown I used to work with just rolled one of these out. I sent over Mayhugh to confiscate his testicles.
ReplyDeletejust heard about a guy in our company that just changed his last name - he and his wife who must be a real treat, combined their last names. no, not hyphenated...combined it a la brangelina, but w/last name....and did so legally, and with the wife's last name leading...using this format, my last name would be.... Wolfello. homo. very homo.
ReplyDeletei don't believe you, danimal. no man is that whipped.
ReplyDeleteI worked with a woman who made up a last name when she got married, it was an amalgamation of both of their middle names. My father would slit my throat if I gave up zname.
ReplyDeletealso - sometime around midnight by airborne toxic event is my current goosebump song.
ReplyDeleteit is true. unfortunately. such an embarrassment for our gender.
ReplyDeleteThere is a frat guy from my year who's aunt and uncle did the "combining the last name without hyphen" thing. I also went to HS with a guy who took his wife's last name. His defense was that his last name was "Smith" and it was boring.
ReplyDeletethat would be my defense too if him. much easier than to say - "I'm probably the biggest pussy you'll ever meet."
ReplyDeleteI would sell out my lsat name if my wife's family was loaded and it meant getting into their good grace$.
ReplyDeleteAlas, that was not the case with my marriage.
For the record, my lsat name is the same as my last name. And the same as my psat name and my gre name, for that matter.
ReplyDeleteT. Abdul Rockafeller
ReplyDeleteI like it.
or Rockefeller
ReplyDeleteA guy I played ball with at my first college has a joint facebook account with his wife. This makes me angry every time I see on "their" updates. Don't these people have friends who'll call them out on this.
ReplyDeleteAs for giving up your last name, there is no excuse for that. Ever. Like Z, my Dad would kill me if I gave up our last name. While it's not exactly rare, I am the last male in the family who can pass the name on to future generations.
I got my last name from my father. He got it from his father who traded a mule for it. That mule went on to save spring break.
ReplyDeleteThere were 75 people at Skins camp?
ReplyDeletehow'd they get that many?
ReplyDeleteOur son comes home with a new piece of 'art' from daycare every day. It promptly goes into the trashcan in the garage.
ReplyDeleteThe mule sounds like the better deal than I got from Geoff's family. All I got were crabs from his mammy. Oh!
ReplyDeletewas that a Dice Clay "Oh!"?
ReplyDeleteYes it was.
ReplyDeleteevidence that the english premier league is a bit top heavy (as i know you were searching for it): fulham, a top 10 side, are given 1,000-1 odds to win the premiership.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/aug/03/premier-league-preview-fulham
EPL is maybe a 6-team horse race, with another 6 or so cruising in the middle and making a lot of cash and the bottom 8 or so fighting for survival.
ReplyDeleteEPL kick-off is 8/13, only 10 days away!
can't wait to not watch and continue to know nothing about epl and all other l's in that sport. totally not psyched.
ReplyDeletehowevaah, i am aroused with the idea of college football and my "fiscal year" starting in 29 days.
i would like jerry to expound mathematically on the epl.
ReplyDeleteAnd the WWF.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it was just me, but I thought Simmons significantly underrated John Cena's and HBK's theme music in his WWE theme song rankings. I'm proud to say both of those are on my iPod.
ReplyDeleteSimmons left the Road Warriors out of his wrestling music rankings. Their Tyson-esque entrances to Ironman were epic. They'd sprint in with no robes and just start whooping ass.
ReplyDeleteThis is was an interesting read.
ReplyDeletehttp://goo.gl/wkJnO
Some MLB pitcher talks through the procedure Bartolo Colon had on his elbow/shoulder by going through the same procedure.
Wonder if this would work on my 60 year old knees. MSM/Shark cartilage just ain't doing it for me.
And yes a sports link and I did use ain't.
people who attend church regularly usually don't like art-- or the kind of art we saw at the whitney today, which included an installation of simultaneous humongous video game screens projected ont he wall depicting the history of bowling type games from the 70's until now, with everyone rolling gutter-balls. ridiculous but mesmerizing.
ReplyDeleteI bet Unitarians would love that.
ReplyDeletepour some out for bubba smith
ReplyDelete