Like I was saying this was one of those nights that was so cold all you saw moving was the steam from the sewer. Every other animal besides us knows to get inside and stay there when it’s that cold. I had spent most of my shift in the valet booth reading, punctuated with the occasional trip out back to smoke a cigarette with the cooks from the hotel bar. Wasn’t really making any money but I still had the clock goin. Interestingly enough, slow nights like this was when me and the guys got along best, so we hadn’t got into it or anything that night. I got a cheeseburger from the hotel bar for my “lunch” and about halfway through it one of the guys came in, we’ll call him Mo...
Walter Lucken IV
February 7, 2022
culture
Despite 2021 being a watershed year for many Detroit-based artists’ representation at the fairs, it seems to have gone largely unremarked upon. By my count, works by thirty three Detroit artists made their way down to Miami this past December, represented by twelve galleries across all the major fairs...
Nolan Simon, edited by Rachel Pontious
January 31, 2022
art
Today, Daniel Sharp, also known as madeofants, releases his EP Lost & Found. With this music, Sharp also presents a video for the song “cyberhellravedungeonfunruncore (Marshall Applewhite’s Kids Today Get Distracted Easily Mix)” that was made in collaboration with Joel Dunn....
Ashley Cook
January 24, 2022
music
Maddie Kuzak’s work has been shown across the United States, from Los Angeles to New York City, granting a glimpse into internet-laden aesthetics alongside horror tropes, melding into a singular, one-of-a-kind practice that transcends the current zeitgeist of Millennial and Gen Z art, piercing through the online and the in-person.
Kellen MacGregor
January 17, 2022
art
One of One is a perfect example of Loyke’s approach to making work and the interweaving that he continues to use to underscore the various facets of his practice. The video was shot by Jay Hendricks, edited by Lokye with the song produced by G $wank. It was filmed at Public Pool with his most recent exhibition acting as the backdrop while also participating as the main focus of the video.
Video Premiere
Ashley Cook
January 10, 2022
music
For the past two years we have been put through the ringer. It might have been foolish to expect last year to be any different than the one before it but we can look forward to a touch of reprieve in 2022.
Theresa Ndrejaj
January 3, 2022
periodicals
Through the lens of play-count-maximizing production, music appears thoroughly mapped. Known rhythms, well-worn sample packs, and enculturated structures denote genres – purportedly-useful fictions that serve to both limit the scope of possible production and inhibit the consumption of anything but recapitulations of what we already know...
Video premiere
Weather Citizen
December 27, 2021
music
The heydays of the auto industry certainly led to Detroit being recognized as the Motor City. At that point, a new term called Fordism took over the world, which eventually led to the most recent one, which may not yet be completely known and defined - Detroitism...
Katarina Dačić
December 13, 2021
industry
In the end I’m not trying to find anything too specific. I just enjoy the thrill of looking in deep waters of the self, sometimes using Jungian archetypes as guidance tools, but in the end it’s all about getting in contact with the stuff dreams and nightmares are made of, because we wouldn’t be without it...
Juan Diego Covarrubias
December 6, 2021
art
Gen Kuzak’s most recent pornographic film The French Boys premiered at the Cranbrook DeSalle Auditorium in Bloomfield Hills on October 14, 2021. The film features a transmasculine couple in Paris, France who responded to Gen’s call for actors after having also become fans of his work in recent years...
Ashley Cook
December 2, 2021
art
I interpret Trudell’s concept of “being human” as defined by a union of “being” - a physical and psychological body event - with conscientious acts of humanity that disrupt colonial power structures. This alignment of the embodied self and the thinking mind allows us to unsettle normative conditioning and connect to a decolonized version of ourselves. I outline how “being human” simultaneously eschews colonial identities and helps one internalize a decolonized paradigm....
Andrew Kaplowitz and Paris La Don
November 29, 2021
thought
The usual fashion centers of the world occasionally take a backseat when designers become curious and exploratory, asking what would it mean to exhibit this work here? How would the work be read if it were premiered there? Of course, within the world of art, music, fashion, design, anything really, things can be much more interesting when the context of place is considered in relation to the content...
Mary Kate and Ashley
November 22, 2021
fashion
Film Premiere
Lullaby explores the relationship between solitude and spirituality while portraying the blurred lines between dreams and reality and how they bleed together to construct our perceptions, especially during a time when the days seemed to melt together. Shot by local director, LANSUH, at Dabls Mbad African Bead Museum and features electronic artist KESSWA as the goddess character. Scored by Sara Barron and was mixed and mastered by Ben Collins (Anna Burch, Stef Chura).
Sara Barron
November 15, 2021
music
Planet Ant Theatre is a true survivor and no stranger to the many obstacles that face a non-profit community of creatives striving toward a common goal. After more than 25 years in operation, the Ant boasts the longest running improv comedy show in the Detroit area...
Matthew Copeland
November 8, 2021
culture
DJ Mixx
EXT EST
November 1, 2021
music
What transforms in the body when it becomes ill—not just physically, but its entire essence?
Marissa Jezak
October 25, 2021
thought
Shortly after Samuel Davidson’s absence, five more workers disappeared and fearing it a trend, the boss became concerned about losing the contract. When none of the workers returned his calls and he received angry protests as to why trash had not been picked up in certain locations, he panicked and began the arduous process of covering for the missing workers himself. Unable to manage the workload, the company lost contracts, and soon enough, what remaining workers stayed began to drift away and the company disintegrated...
This short story explores the possibility of upending a system without the need for violence or destruction. What happens when people collectively reject a system built on their own exploitation?..
Rey Hinojosa
October 18, 2021
thought
To Whom It May Concern: the name is JAK, I don’t beat around the bush unless I’m planting flowers there – here, I am lookin for a job and what else is new like ain’t we all? Trying to find the position of our dreams...
Joshua Kochis
October 11, 2021
thought
Brown’s work exudes a genuine sense of warmth and affection for her subject matter that is evident in the amount of labor invested in these works. Hundreds of earrings and chicken heads had to be cast individually in brittle plaster and then inlaid into these tablet forms. The care shown and labor exerted is presented as if they are love letters to all of the women who have adorned themselves with these ornaments throughout history....
Kurtis Greene
October 4, 2021
art
These nine small gouache paintings presented at Belle Isle Viewing Room were made as part of a larger series that will debut at The Contemporary Dayton, an upcoming solo show featuring over 200 new pieces by George Rush...
Ashley Cook
September 27, 2021
art
The high contrast between the contexts of the gracefully dilapidated domestic space and the fragile glass works seems to invent a place where the architectural structure feels, in-fact, to be more delicate than the artworks inside...
Ashley Cook
September 13, 2021
art
These in particular I wrote over a holiday break, when I found myself avoiding my last round of seminar papers...
Walter Lucken IV
September 6, 2021
thought
For the launch party, which was held outdoors in a very socially distanced empty lot, she asked me to write a poem about anything I felt needed to be said - to my hometown and the broader world. Pulling back the curtain - collecting the receipts, if you will....
MJ Slide
August 23, 2021
thought
It is not a surprise that the importance of imagery on our society has been growing exponentially for decades, with the adoption of technology solely used to create, produce, edit, distribute, and syndicate it. There are over 3 billion images shared daily, and over a trillion images copyrighted every year. There is an entire system running parallel to culture that stores, showcases, and hides the content created...
Chris McGraw
August 9, 2021
culture
A creative flash non-fiction piece exploring our physical relationship to the sounds of the city from a newcomer's POV.
"Wear sturdy boots and withhold judgment. Open your mind's eye - feel it in your chest. It's gonna be ok."...
MJ Slide
July 26, 2021
thought
July 17th 2021 @cavedetroit inside the Russell Industrial Center ~ come on out, celebrate the work of our first year contributors, and get your copy of Runner Magazine’s compilation of all of the works that were published April 2020 - April 2021! You can read, dance, or do both at the same time! Sets by Detroit’s amazing @blackmoonchild___ , @ms.arielsports and @ak640s...
Ashley Cook
July 19, 2021
culture
As Detroit is seemingly slowly recovering, looking back at the development of Berlin might help to understand what could be at stake when imagining Detroit’s future; maybe Berlin can serve as a prediction of how Detroit’s urban landscape might develop if the wrong people are in charge. Just like Berlin a couple of decades ago, Detroit has the quite unique opportunity to redefine what kind of urban environment it wants to be.
Leonie Hagen
July 5, 2021
architecture
An audible amalgamation is spawned from the minds and work of Matthew Ryan Surline (MRS) and Walken Schweigert in their music ensemble Crune that unites the aesthetics of Baroque and Disco into an immersive listening and entertainment experience. With a primary inspiration of Baroque music laying the foundation for decision making behind their music, the act of bringing this classical era into the contemporary further entertains the character of this era, which was an expansion of musical possibilities with more complex compositions, innovation and experimentation...
Ashley Cook
June 28, 2021
music
June 5, 2021 was the most recent FUCK ICE car wash with the focus on the abolition of the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. This event was located on Breckenridge in Detroit, a desolate street just North of 1-94 and just west of Grand River avenue. This area resembles a country road with foliage overgrowth, a giant dead tree and just a couple houses on the block. It very much sets the tone for this Detroit car wash, as this vacant-ness and free growth of the wild natural plants are complemented by the beautiful cars that are ever so prevalent in a Detroit summer...
Ashley Cook
June 14, 2021
activism
You might ask who sent me. Well, I would remind you that those who my work loves, it cannot name. There will be some allusions here and there, maybe an argot or a jargon that the attuned ear can capture, but no names...
Walter Lucken IV
June 7, 2021
thought
Demeter, past post flourish. a hag lost in mort carrying corpus. Seeker, Who is to welcome her summer?
Daisy
May 24, 2021
thought
“The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.” I kinda think like people are a wrapper around the animalistic void. At certain times the wrapper gets thin or goes away. And hence the human instrumentality initiative seeks to unify the void inside all of us lmao
Palm Treat and an Anonymous Media Theorist
May 10, 2021
culture
“An architectural extravaganza is hoped to return vitality to the doyenne of decayed downtowns—Detroit. But can architect John Portman draw crowds and keep them there? Will the transplant live but the body die?”
Leonie Hagen
April 26, 2021
art
The common theme amongst the mindset of these artists is in their communication of an experience similar to seeing the world through a sheer translucent veil. Whether intentional or not, the recognition of the relationship between the inner and outer world is at play, and there is no filter that is attempting to hide this current state of mind.
Ashley Cook
April 12, 2021
art
"The five wall works presented in The Ritual of the Mask are intimate paintings made of paper, fiberglass and wood. McGhee refers to these shaped artworks as ‘crushed paintings’....."
Ashley Cook
March 29, 2021
art
VeilsFINAL/LifePrevailsPromo.jpg "Life(Pre)Veils.BryanCorley")
What is the role that image making plays during the process of grievance, catharsis and even in the production of acceptance or new hope? This question seems to be something that is emerging when viewing the work of Bryan Corley in the exhibition Life (Pre)veils at Cass Cafe. On view are 19 works that seem to be on some kind of dissected journey through different histories from art to mythology to meme culture, combining them all into an amalgamation that mirrors the contemporary “melting” pot of meaning that is this internet saturated world of symbols....
Bryan Corley in Conversation with Ashley Cook
March 15, 2021
art
It has always been convenient to implement hierarchies and categorization as a way to understand differences, but in effect, this practice has robbed everything that exists within this framework of its right for more autonomous, natural, wild and enchanting ways to “be” and “engage”.
En·chant·ment (n) a feeling of great pleasure or delight; the state of being under a spell, magic...
Ashley Cook
March 1, 2021
thought
Float the Vote was one such point of curiosity that I felt could be fully realized and brought forth into the physical world because of a sincere focus on strengthening access to voting in communities around Detroit. I was ecstatic to discover I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. Feeling calm, ready, and vigilant, our five-person team set out into the sprawling urban landscape of Detroit to recruit food trucks and reach as many people as possible...
Brandon Stuart
February 15, 2021
activism
We often see the curatorial arts rely heavily on white-walled galleries and cube-like centerfolds embellished by cocktail parties and small talk. The simpler the space, the easier for the viewer to digest the art, correct? With conceptual art cementing its place within the contemporary art world, the traditions of art institutions, as well as the art market, are in question. How do we make art spaces more accessible to a broader audience, therefore easing the process of artists’ presentation of work?...
Lydia Kuzak
February 8, 2021
art
The presence of clocks in public spaces provides a tool for the people while also sort of marking an awareness of the city’s own participation in contemporary society. When being mindful of timekeeping devices in the cityscape of Detroit, there are a handful to be found. Mostly Downtown in the Financial District, some seemingly randomly scattered across the city attached to various kinds of buildings. Some on abandoned mediocre buildings, some on very iconic buildings. Some on banks, some on office buildings, some on shopping malls, some on churches. A few working, most out of order. Some of those still working are set at a wrong time. Nobody seems to care, clocks have vanished from the people’s consciousness...
Leonie Hagen
February 1, 2021
architecture
Wurl Sotto, a Detroit-based hip-hop artist and member of hip hop collective WE!RDOZ GANG, has been making a name for himself in Detroit over the past few years. While doing small shows around the city, he also has been doing very well on all streaming platforms such as SoundCloud, Spotify and Apple Music after receiving a feature in the Metro Times piece Bands to Watch in 2017. His debut album Andromeda, dropped in October of 2020, is a tale of transcendence, love, pain and forgiveness...
Brian H. Newman
January 25, 2021
music
Due to its sheer size, it is difficult, almost inappropriate, to describe the city of Detroit’s current condition with any one-sided perspective. It has recently been branded as “up and coming” because it has a Shinola Hotel, cocktail bars, and street lights that are turned on (in some locations). What can be misleading though, is the assumption that having a Shinola Hotel, and street lights, is all Detroit needs to turn into a healthy city. This raises questions of - Is that really enough?..
Riley Rinnan
January 18, 2021
architecture
After a cloudy day of avoiding potholes, driving at sunset while everything glows orange is a necessary meditation. Driving around in a city this big introduces techniques and etiquette specific to the neighborhoods—learning when to roll through the lights or maintain speed while someone is stood in the turning lane is part of demonstrating respect for the areas passed through. Detroiters made the cars, and they make the rules too. Enjoy the view while it lasts and stay reckless...
Amelia Gillis
January 11, 2021
culture
“Bower of Bliss is an enchanted setting in the epic poem The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser. In her book Sexual Personae, Camille Paglia theorizes that Spenser’s bower of bliss represents a feminine space of sexual domination: a shady, womb-like enclosed area where the hero is seduced away from his quest and kept in a state of ‘languid indolence and passivity’ by a sorceress who erotically drains his energy"...
Ashley Cook
January 4, 2021
art
At TCF they scream “stop the steal”, we insist that there’s no evidence. We insist on science, reason, civil society, even democracy after it was a fiction all year. The water in the Catskills is so cold it stops time. I imagine I can float here for ten years, steeling myself for another 6 months of 2020. I’ll have all the answers when I get out of the water. The teenagers 5.9 feet away are from the future. Maybe that’s why I keep getting plucked out of the frying pan, to give them the pros and cons of civilization before our world is forgotten forever. There’s a lot to be said for it, which is why we keep ending up in a defensive position...
Walter Lucken IV and Dominic Palarchio
December 28, 2020
thought
EAT DA RICH
December 21, 2020
fashion
For those who are aware and conscious, this is not a new conversation. The title of this exhibition by Sean Maxwell at Granny’s Chandelier (October 16th - November 10th) points unapologetically to a discourse that is fundamental to the development of the “free world” that we call the USA; this discourse I am talking about is one that has been sustained by and for the voices of those who believe we can do better, for centuries...
Sean Maxwell in conversation with Ashley Cook
December 14, 2020
art
On July 31st of this year, the Twitter account belonging to Wayne State University’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors tweeted that "lowering Black student enrollment by 40% is nothing to celebrate!" and that the Wilson administration had moved the university "away from its mission to serve our community in Detroit"...
Walter Lucken IV
December 7, 2020
thought
The interplay between something completely untouchable and something utilitarian provides an avenue to imagine a more playful yet still functional reality. Could we really live like this? What would reality feel like if industrial design more commonly teetered into surreality?...
Ashley Cook
November 30, 2020
art
The machines came to gnash their teeth, and bite at me, in the winter of 2017. My sister with light blue blush, and the poison ivy, wound round her face in mourning, was eaten the day before. And our brother, smoke-blackened wedding chapel, dangling snaggle-toothed staircase, collided with ground, hardened mud and frosty dew, just the day before that...
A poem written from the perspective of an old house and an accompanying personal essay...
Christiana Laine
November 23, 2020
culture
The work presented in their most recent exhibition Outer Heaven at No Place Gallery in Columbus, Ohio holds a sense of stoicism above their previous exhibitions...
Ashley Cook
November 16, 2020
art
In the early 2000s self portraiture started to become a central component in defining youth subcultures, with the increased manufacturing of cell phone cameras and escalating popularity of online social networking. People have been making self portraits forever, but before digital photography became such an effortless and widely accessible tool, the self portrait was more of a niche form of art reserved for traditionally skilled artists and photographers. Now it’s omnipresent...
Marissa Jezak
November 9, 2020
culture
Reader, don't hesitate on wondering whether or not this narrative is flirting with the existing conditions of Detroit, or for that matter any other city. It is. And on purpose. That's the point. The narrative however, like any science fiction story, is open to interpretation. I'm not necessarily creating a pessimistic nor an optimistic narrative. I'm creating an alternative environment by simply suggesting possibilities based on existing conditions.
José Arturo Joglar-Cadilla
October 26, 2020
architecture
The Harvest gives a glimpse of the diversity in which the wearable arts of EAT DA RICH span. Following a dynamic layout of textures, colors and applications where there are no boundaries or commitments to mores, EDR debuts their first perfume oil to hit the market, No. 1, announcing its release planned for October 31st
EAT DA RICH
October 19, 2020
fashion
Dance Mix
Ariel Sports is a Detroit artist and DJ that explores concepts of trans embodiment, community engagement, and dancefloor activism through live mixing, sound collage, video installation and nightlife events. Her mix Doll Apparatus is a polyrhythmic journey with meshing of hardstyle, atypical club sounds, transfeminine voices, and electroclash nostaglia...
Ariel Sports
October 12, 2020
music
It can be interesting to examine a certain complex that seems to mark the tone for the 21st century of Modern humankind; this complex, and it’s contradictions, occur from the experience of existing in a body that is between an “animal” and a “human”. By recognizing the constant interplay between these two states, which can be abruptly broken, or fluidly linked, we can attempt to communicate our experiences as “modern” humans in the modern world, and unpack its profound impact on our understanding of mental health, gender, race, class, nature, species...and machine....
Ashley Cook
October 5, 2020
thought
“Going nowhere fast” isn’t what you always think it is. Going somewhere slow is so much worse. Within about a three block radius surrounding Granny’s Chandelier, the gallery Lokye operates, there are a few who go nowhere fast - and it sometimes feels close to nirvana...
City Taxes
September 21, 2020
music
From 2009 and up through our current situation, there have been a slew of underground hip hop artists in Detroit that are innovating and creating in their own lane, with little professional guidance; Sheefy McFly was one of the artists at the forefront of this Renaissance...
Brian H. Newman
September 21, 2020
music
The goal of psychoanalysis is to turn neurotic suffering into normal human misery. Obsession as attempt to solve ambivalence felt to be dangerous...Smoldering reek of shame. Blood smiles out at me...You can’t turn it off. Diversion to diversion to diversion to diversion...
Levi Okla
September 7, 2020
art
I grew up in a very small Midwestern town. The type of quaint and sleepy place where every neighbor waved to one-another and knew your brother, your cousin and your great grandmother. The private Christian elementary and middle schools I attended had a 100% white staff and student population. My public high school in the same town maintained roughly 98%. I believe the homogeneity of my surroundings and complete lack of representation or education about any other races, creeds, or colors, wove an intentional fabric of “blissful” ignorance which has taken me half my life to begin to unravel and reconstruct...
Christiana Laine
August 24, 2020
thought
When entire neighborhoods vanish from the physical space, and business corridors with their intertwined infrastructure disappear, there are questions we must ask ourselves: “How do we document these changes, and give back to the communities directly affected? How do we memorialize what a neighborhood once was? How can the function of open source data be expanded and utilized in the 21st century of “cloud computing”? What potential exists to archive our built environment and pay homage to structures that stand today and may not tomorrow?”...
Riley Rinnan
August 17, 2020
architecture
Art Mile is an exhibition that took place online from July 29 to August 5, 2020. It was founded in order to “champion Detroit’s vibrant and diverse arts community, by promoting public programs and online acquisitions.” With over 50 different galleries and project spaces participating, Art Mile was able to function as one of the few local exhibitions that has worked to highlight hundreds of artists’ work, presenting the broad scope of what is happening within the local art scene, in a simultaneous and relatively concise way...
Ashley Cook
August 10, 2020
art
Gorgeous Portis is a mix maker and music producer based in Detroit, with various mixes available to the world through their presentation on Archive.org. The titles are abstract and confusing at times, using numbers as letters or as words, inventing new words or consistently using the word “ugly”; only by listening through the mixes can they reveal their particular methodology, with a kind of abstract reasoning used to guide the construction of these unique audio-based structures....
Ashley Cook
August 3, 2020
music
This is not an essay as such; it is not expository nor is it persuasive. I have no argument to make. Rather this is an attempt to account for the events that have defined the year. It is a patchwork analysis. It is not a new summation of the present crises by any means, but through repetition and slight iterations, comes a grain of nuance which develops the conversation ever so slightly. The decade commenced with symbolic significance. 2020 was employed to inscribe inspirational social media posts with “Vision is 2020,” suggesting finally that “this would be the year!” But, the year for what?..
Olivia Gilmore
July 20, 2020
thought
As artists we are conditioned to believe that our worth is synonymous with the capital we generate and the admiration we receive. But what power does our work hold, apart from its role in this social exchange? The way art functions not only in a social & political context, but as a tool for healing & self liberation is very relevant in late capitalist society. The exhausting and alienating effects of the economic system we live in tend to be overwhelming, and can cause us to gravitate toward self destruction...
Marissa Jezak
July 6, 2020
art
James Oscar Lee's n u l l Account opened on February 15th at 1201 Bagley Street in Detroit, a location which was formerly the Engine Company No. 8, built in 1908 and functioned as a firehouse until 1982. Initially, it could be interesting to consider the relevance of choosing this location, which was in relatively raw condition, to host a contemporary painting show, but, throughout the history of Lee's practice, he has commonly chosen to exhibit his work between off site “found” spaces throughout the city and proper gallery spaces....
Ashley Cook
June 22, 2020
art
What would it mean, as contemporary moderns, to recognize these areas, the hybrids, the blocks of movement of something which is in transition between what it was and what it will be? As many contemporary philosophers and anthropologists are beginning to see this need for control as paradoxical and highly problematic, they are asking “how do we break from these tendencies?” And "what kinds of potential comes with the suspension of our need for control?"...
Ashley Cook
June 8, 2020
thought
Among the newest array of online zoom meetings and virtual dance parties, in the ether of the net, exists a 115 minute ambient music set weaved intermittently with a reading of Octavia E. Butler’s Speech Sounds. Composed by Perlex, Speech Sounds Live was presented as part of the BLDG:01 live streaming project called Stille. The airy vibe of the encouraging melody and layered sounds, like wind or a machine working slowly with a steady rhythm,...
Ashley Cook
May 25, 2020
music
Nolan Simon (b. 1980) lives and works in Hamtramck, Michigan. His work has been included in exhibitions across the US and Europe, including solo shows at 47 Canal in New York City, Lars Friedrich in Berlin, Rieseburo Galerie Christian Nagel in Cologne, Green Gallery in Milwaukee and at What Pipeline in Detroit. Nolan and I met in his studio at CAVE, a collective art studio located in the Russell Industrial Center...
Virginia Torrence
May 11, 2020
art
“Conscious awareness is a powerful tool to transcending unconscious patterns. It fosters an expanded perspective and openness to new possibilities. It is a process of recognizing what is going on inside and out, the effects of decisions and actions, and the interaction between the complex array of factors and forces. It is seeing, observing our thoughts, recognizing our feelings and the effect they are having on us and others; it functions as...
Ashley Cook
April 24, 2020
culture