WHAT: “Another Look at Detroit: Parts 1 and 2”
WHEN: Through August 8
WHERE: Marianne Boesky Gallery and Marlborough Chelsea
WHY THIS SHOW MATTERS: The city of Detroit has made headlines for unfortunate reasons and hopeful reasons this past year, its public image bouncing between a post-industrial ghost town and poster child for post-urban living. Todd Levin’s “Another Look at Detroit: Parts 1 and 2,” currently on view at Marianne Boesky Gallery and Marlborough Chelsea, doesn’t align itself with either — or any — preconceived notion of what Detroit was, is, or should be.
In fact, Levin says, in a lengthy curatorial statement about the show, “This is not an exhibition about geopolitics or macroeconomics or global finance. This is not an exhibition glorifying the misguided aesthetics of destruction porn.” He adds, “It is neither a feel-good exhibition trying to accentuate the positive, nor an attempt at organizing a proper historical overview of how a city was birthed and decayed.” Levin, a Detroit native and the director of the Levin Art Group, has pulled together some of the biggest names in art, and some not so widely known, in a personal collage of the city’s artistic roots, burgeoning present, and unknown future.
Featured artwork includes a painting by Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, a sculpture by Nick Cave, ephemeral artifacts such as a 1959 Plymouth automobile advertisement, decorative work like Michael McCoy’s “Door Chair Prototype,” as well as pieces by Destroy All Monsters, Charles and Ray Eames, Bill Rauhauser, Dana Schutz, and more.
“This exhibition is a sprawling tone poem evoking the city where I was born and raised, a place I still feel deeply in my identity. A soliloquy by someone returning home, but not to the place they once knew,” explains Levin. Considering the fact that just yesterday, the Detroit Institute of Arts made headlines with news that some of the city’s biggest corporations will pledge $26.8 million to help save its historic collection, there couldn’t be a better time to pause and examine the city’s creative lineage.
Click on the slideshow to see images from “Another Look at Detroit: Parts 1 and 2.”
