Detroit - CAS Theme 2021-2022

Once the manufacturing powerhouse of the nation, Detroit has become emblematic of failing cities everywhere--the paradigmatic city of ruins--and the epicenter of an explosive growth in images of urban decay. In Beautiful Terrible Ruins, art historian Dora Apel explores a wide array of these images, ranging from photography, advertising, and television, to documentaries, video games, and zombie and disaster films.

When most people think of Detroit and music, they think of the Motown sound. But what many people forget is that Detroit has a remarkable jazz history, which became a major influence in what came to be known as the Motown sound. Before Motown is the first book about the history of jazz in Detroit. It shows the significant impact Detroit has had on the development of jazz in America, with its own sound, distinct from that of the other jazz centers of Chicago, New Orleans, St. Louis, or Kansas City.

Detroit's unique and partly abandoned cityscape has scarred its image around the world for decades. But in the last several years journalists have begun to view the city through a different lens, focusing on the wide range of contemporary artists finding inspiration amid the emptiness and adding a more complex chapter to the story of a city long labeled as a haunting symbol of U.S. economic decline. In "Canvas Detroit, "Julie Pincus and Nichole Christian combine vibrant full-color photography of the city's much-buzzed-about art scene with thoughtful narrative that explores the art and artists that are re-creating Detroit.

In its twenty years of existence, the Heidelberg Project has inspired awe in visitors from around the world, drawn praise from the international art community, and provoked extensive discussions in its own backyard. In 1986, Tyree Guyton created the project with the idea of visibly transforming the environment of his decaying neighborhood, which was marred by crime, prostitution, and gangs. Using the materials around him--cast-off toys, discarded car parts, and other debris--along with his trademark brightly colored polka dots, Guyton eventually transformed several houses and vacant lots on Heidelberg Street into the city's most recognizable art environment and one of its leading tourist attractions. Connecting the Dots, the first comprehensive collection of writings on the Heidelberg Project, attempts to get to the heart of Guyton's project by considering it from a number of fascinating angles--including legal, aesthetic, political, and personal.

The collection of Greek vases in the Detroit Institute of Arts has been compiled over the course of the twentieth century to reflect the range of painting styles and shapes which characterize the period from the eighth through fourth centuries B.C. This catalogue is the first publication of that collection, comprising those vases from Corinth and Athens with painted decoration. The physical and painted characteristics of each vase are recorded, with an attribution to a painter or group, and a date. The relationship of the painted decoration to other Greek painted vases, religious, or social institutions is discussed. The catalogue will be of interest to specialists in Greek vase painting, and those interested in Greek art and its modern collecting.

1960s Detroit was a city with a pulse: people were marching in step with Martin Luther King, Jr.; dancing in the street with Martha and the Vandellas; facing off with city police and through it all, Motown provided the beat. This book tells the story of Motown - as both musical style and entrepreneurial phenomenon - and of its intrinsic relationship to the politics and culture of Motor Town, USA.

In Detroit's Historic Places of Worship, authors Marla O. Collum, Barbara E. Krueger, and Dorothy Kostuch profile 37 architecturally and historically significant houses of worship that represent 8 denominations and nearly 150 years of history. The authors focus on Detroit's most prolific era of church building, the 1850s to the 1930s, in chapters that are arranged chronologically. Entries begin with each building's founding congregation and trace developments and changes to the present day. Full-color photos by Dirk Bakker bring the interiors and exteriors of these amazing buildings to life, as the authors provide thorough architectural descriptions, pointing out notable carvings, sculptures, stained glass, and other decorative and structural features.

Founded in 1910, Detroit's Players Club is an all-male club devoted to the production of theater by members for other members' enjoyment. Called simply "The Players," members of the club design, direct, and act in the shows, including playing the female roles. In Detroit on Stage, Marijean Levering takes readers behind the scenes of the club's private "frolics" to explore the unique history of The Players, discover what traditions they still hold dear, and examine why they have survived relatively unscathed through changes that have shuttered older and more venerable institutions.

For the last century, the Detroit Public Library has ranked as one of the most beautiful buildings in Detroit--an important landmark as well as a significant monument serving generations of Detroiters.

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra: Grace, Grit, and Glory details the history of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as seen through the prism of the city it has called home for nearly 130 years. Now one of America's finest orchestras, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra began in 1887 as a rather small ensemble of around thirty-five players in a city that was just emerging as an industrial powerhouse. Since then, both the city and its orchestra have known great success in musical artistry for the symphony and economic influence for the city.

From the early days of John Lee Hooker to the heyday of Motown and beyond, Detroit has enjoyed a long reputation as one of the crucibles of American pop music. In Grit, Noise, and Revolution, David Carson turns the spotlight on those hard-rocking, long-haired musicians-influenced by Detroit's R&B heritage-who ultimately helped change the face of rock 'n' roll.

The years between World War I and the economic collapse of 1929 witnessed Detroit's greatest building boom. Perhaps the most recognizable and innovative structure erected during that era was the Union Trust Building, now known as the Guardian Building. Designed by Wirt Rowland--of the firm Smith, Hinchman, and Grylls--the Guardian's expressive Gothic-inspired elements, bright orange brick facade, and brightly colored ceramic accents immediately set it apart from the surrounding buildings of Detroit's financial district. The interior is similarly extravagant, with a lobby ceiling made entirely of multicolored tiles, walls and floors accented by exotic marbles, and platinum-colored Monel metal elevator doors, gates, and handrails.

Over the last twenty years, numerous scholarly publications have treated the work of African American artists of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. At that time, Detroit was the fifth largest city in the country with a large African American population and a vibrant Black arts scene. Nevertheless, the aforementioned publications fail to discuss Detroit African American artists. This book, which accompanies an exhibition of the same title, focuses on the life and work of Memphis born, Detroiter Harold Neal, who created some of the most forceful artistic statements of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements.

In 1968 Detroit Receiving Hospital, through the generosity of Michigan artists and friends of the hospital, began an art collection designed to provide an environment colorful, attractive, and beneficial to patients, their families, and the hospital staff. Today, that collection includes more than a thousand works of art. The Healing Work of Art documents this amazing collection, highlighting the diversity of its holdings as well as its history.

Heaven Was Detroit: From Jazz to Hip Hop and Beyond is the first of its kind to capture the full spectrum of Detroit popular music from the early 1900s to the twenty-first century. Readers will find in this unique and stimulating anthology new essays, and a few classics, by widely known and respected music writers, critics, and recording artists who weigh in on their careers and experiences in the Detroit music scene, from rock to jazz and everything in between.

Jazz from Detroit explores the city's pivotal role in shaping the course of modern and contemporary jazz. With more than two dozen in-depth profiles of remarkable Detroit-bred musicians, complemented by a generous selection of photographs, Mark Stryker makes Detroit jazz come alive as he draws out significant connections between the players, eras, styles, and Detroit's distinctive history.

For six years Maya Stovall staged Liquor Store Theatre, a conceptual art and anthropology video project---included in the Whitney Biennial in 2017---in which she danced near the liquor stores in her Detroit neighborhood as a way to start conversations with her neighbors. In this book of the same name, Stovall uses the project as a point of departure for understanding everyday life in Detroit and the possibilities for ethnographic research, art, and knowledge creation. Her conversations with her neighbors--which touch on everything from economics, aesthetics, and sex to the political and economic racism that undergirds Detroit's history--bring to light rarely acknowledged experiences of longtime Detroiters.

This picture book biography of Tyree Guyton, an urban environmental artist, shows how he transformed his decaying, crime-ridden neighborhood into the Heidelberg Project, an interactive sculpture park. The story spans from Tyree's childhood in 1950s Detroit to his early efforts to heal his community through art in the 1980s. Tyree's awards include Michigan Artist of the Year and International Artist. MAGIC TRASH offers strong themes of working together, the power of art, and the importance of inspiring community--especially kids--to affect action. The Heidelberg Project is internationally recognized for providing arts education to children and adults and for the ongoing development of several houses on Heidelberg Street. Not only does the Heidelberg Project prove that when a community works together it can rebuild itself, but it also addresses the issues of recycling, environmentalism, and community on a global level.

Motor City Movie Culture, 1916-1925 is a broad textured look at Hollywood coming of age in a city with a burgeoning population and complex demographics. Richard Abel investigates the role of local Detroit organizations in producing, distributing, exhibiting, and publicizing films in an effort to make moviegoing part of everyday life. Tapping a wealth of primary source material--from newspapers, spatiotemporal maps, and city directories to rare trade journals, theater programs, and local newsreels--Abel shows how entrepreneurs worked to lure moviegoers from Detroit's diverse ethnic neighborhoods into the theaters.

From award-winning author Andrea Davis Pinkney comes the story of the music that defined a generation and a movement that changed the world. Berry Gordy began Motown in 1959 with an $800 loan from his family. He converted the garage of a residential house into a studio and recruited teenagers from the neighborhood-like Smokey Robinson, Mary Wells, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and Diana Ross-to sing for his new label. Meanwhile, the country was on the brink of a cultural revolution, and one of the most powerful agents of change in the following decade would be this group of young black performers from urban Detroit.

From its humble beginning as the Hopkin Club to its current status in the 21st century, the Scarab Club in Detroit focuses on fine, performing, and technical arts and is still housed in its original 1928 building. On the cusp of its centennial anniversary, the Scarab Club (founded in 1907) weaves itself into the city of Detroit's and the state of Michigan's artistic cultural heritage.

The InsideOut Literary Arts Project (iO) began in 1995 in five Detroit high schools, with weekly classroom visits by a writer-in-residence, the publication of a literary journal for each school, and the mission of encouraging students to use poetry to "think broadly, create bravely, and share their voices with the wider world." Twenty years later, the program serves some five thousand K-12 students per year, has received national exposure and accolades (including a recent visit to the White House), and has seen numerous student writers recognized for their creativity and performance.

This book explores the perilous situation that faced the Detroit Institute of Arts during the city's bankruptcy, when creditors considered it a "nonessential asset" that might be sold to settle Detroit's debts. It presents the history of the museum in the context of the social, economic, and political development of Detroit, giving a history of the city as well as of the institution, and providing a model of contextual institutional history.

The Villanovan and Etruscan collections of the Detroit Institute of Arts not only represent an important source of Classical Antiquity in the United States, but also serve as a historical model of how such artifacts were acquired by large American museums from the late-nineteenth through mid-twentieth centuries. These collections provide museum visitors, scholars, and students with an indepth view into one of antiquity's most fascinating peoples, the Etruscans and their predecessors.