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January 21, 2012 8:55 PM MST
The plucky little gallery in the middle of Mexicantown continues to make an impression. "It's like they don't want you to know about it," one gallery patron joked as he carefully gave instructions on the phone to a friend who was literally one block away from the gallery. Tonight marked the start of their annual member show, 2012 edition.
Members of Whitdel Arts include Oscar B. Oscar, whose work has been exhibited all over town. At Whitdel Arts you can see his May painting. "It's a series of four [the other three are also named after months of the year], and they have all been exhibited, but never together," Oscar explained. "Each member can submit two works to the show."
Noted Detroit arts connoisseur J. H. Dozier was impressed by the level of detail and "intrigues" in Oscar B. Oscar's painting of a man and two skulls in front of two mirrors. For one thing, the skulls in the May painting are wearing blue sunglasses. "It's one work, four parts, that's what you tell them," Dozier advised Oscar. Both of them would like to see all four pieces in one place.
Other artists showing at the Whitdel member show include Don and Linda Mendelson, Jon Pickell and Donita Simpson. Whereas Whitdel is thriving, artist hangout 1515 Broadway is in danger of ceasing to exist. This topic was on the minds of gallery goers tonight, many of whom plan to go the rally on Thursday, which is spearheaded by Occupy Detroit.
Local photographers celebrate Detroit music scene
March 31, 2012 9:13 PM MST
Photographers Doug Coombe and Trever Long horse around at Whitdel Arts. Photo by Alonso del Arte.
The Detroit music scene has generated quite its share of iconic images. Three of Detroit's most prominent photographers of musicians, Doug Coombe, Trever Long and Marvin Shaouni, are showing several of their photographs of various singers and bands at Whitdel Arts, the plucky little gallery in Mexicantown. All three photographers have been published in the Metro Times.
Musicians pictured in the show include Insane Clown Posse, Invincible, Danny Brown and the Detroit Party Marching Band, to name just a few. All the photographs demonstrate the three photographers' fun approach to the craft, which was in evidence as they took a turn in front of the camera to pose for their fans a little after the opening reception's scheduled end time. "They [are] so goofy," said Lisa Gomez, a paralegal from Ferndale. "Crazy talented, but goofy."
DJ Carjack provided music for the opening reception. The show will be up through most of April, according to the gallery's website.
Gallery in Mexicantown showcases collaborative art
June 2, 2012 1:15 PM MST
The plucky little gallery in Mexicantown continues to make history with high concept shows. For the Partners in Crime show at Whitdel Arts, eighteen local artists were randomly paired to create new work. Thus, for example, poet Christina Perez and painter Matthew Hanna teamed up to create four paintings exploring the relationship between images and text. At the opening reception, Perez read some of her poetry, which is available as a booklet. Other teams include Myett Risker and Thomas Bell, Jessica Ingolia and Jessica Brown.
There is in fact another show going on at Whitdel Arts at the same time, with the opening reception also taking place last night: a solo show by Tim Powers in the back room, with the most fascinating piece being a portrait of Katy Perry made up of chewing gum chewed by middle school students as part of a special project. "They chose the pop celebrity [to make a portrait of], I chose the image of that celebrity," Powers explained.
"We had a discussion on how fleeting celebrity is," Powers recalled. "In another four years, it wouldn't be Katy Perry." Most of the other work by Powers consists of mirrors and white surfaces. "I like the simplicity of his work," fellow artist Hiroko Lancour said at the reception.
And there are another two shows coming up at Whitdel Arts this month: Tony Collias in a couple of weeks and after him Lancour, according to the gallery website. The collaborative art show will be on display until a little past Independence Day.
Emerging artists series continues at gallery in Mexicantown
June 18, 2012 10:15 AM MST
Toni Collias (left) and Mari Barnett with the portrait he painted of her, at Whitdel Arts. Photo by Alonso del Arte.
Blood is thicker than water, or for that matter, acrylic paint with water. Among the works by Tony Collias currently on exhibit at Whitdel Arts, the plucky little gallery in Mexicantown, is a portrait of his cousin Mari Barnett. "He called me, he sent me an e-mail, I was surprised," Barnett recalled. Collias sent her a photograph of the portrait by e-mail. "This is the first time I've seen it [the portrait] in person," Barnett said at the opening reception last Friday. Other members of the family were also present.
The other paintings in the Animals, Narratives and Portraits show include paintings of a tiger and a shark. Many of the paintings feature deliberate drips. "You take acrylic paint and you can add as much water as you want," Collias explained. Too much water causes the paint to drip from its intended location on the canvas, an effect Collias noticed and started applying deliberately and selectively.
Collias graduated college with a degree in literature in the 1990s, but then took up painting in earnest. He has mostly exhibited in Chicago, and the Whitdel Arts exhibit is among his first in Michigan. Dave Pauli, a screen print artist, has been closely following Collias and his career. "Some of his artwork was ruined, it was in his brother's shed," Pauli said. "I have one of his earliest paintings, [it is the] pride of my collection," Pauli added.
The Collias show will only run for two weeks, according to the gallery website, in the back part of the gallery (while the front part of the gallery will continue to show Partners in Crime until after Independence Day) as part of the gallery's Emerging Artists series. The next artist in the series is Hiroko Lancour, with an opening reception scheduled for June 29.
Few art openings in Detroit this weekend after Independence Day
July 4, 2012 6:31 PM MST
Yamashita Reina tosses a quarter at Whitdel Arts to demonstrate how she assisted her aunt in her artwork. Photo by Alonso del Arte.
Although the Fourth of July has fallen on a Wednesday this year, there are still rather few art openings for this weekend. But there are plenty of ongoing exhibits to go to. For example, if you missed seeing Hiroko Lancour's Realm of Repetition show at Whitdel Arts, the plucky little gallery in Mexicantown, this Saturday is your last chance it.
"Her work is so meticulous," said gallery director JenClare Gawaran, who enjoyed putting up Lancour's work a couple of weeks ago. One of the pieces, for example, involved the artist's niece Reina Yamashita repeatedly tossing a coin and Lancour recording the result directly on the artwork. For another piece, Lancour wrote the Japanese characters 烦 and 悩 (which together mean "earthly desires") 54 times each; the work is titled Transcendental Leap From One Hundred Eight Earthly Desires.
Lancour's show is part of the Emerging Artists series, which has so far run at a pace of two weeks for each artist. Gawaran has decided to extend it to three weeks but Lancour's show is still scheduled to come down on Sunday.
Despite the aforementioned scarcity of art openings this weekend, there are at least two more openings besides the Motor City Brewery opening listed in the printed Metro Times. Wayne State University's Art Department Gallery has an opening for a sculpture show this Friday, according to the school's event calendar website. And Start Gallery has an opening for a "stereoscopic 3D installation encompassing the entire gallery," according to the gallery's Facebook page.
Mexicantown gallery selects three artists for summer show
July 14, 2012 12:38 PM MST
Patrick Maguire with his floor installation at Whitdel Arts. Photo by Alonso del Arte.
They have art on the walls, but also on the floor. Patrick Maguire's paintings are part of the Summer Selection at Whitdel Arts, the plucky little gallery in Mexicantown, but he also has a floor installation as part of the exhibit. Some patrons at the opening last night didn't even notice the floor, others were hesitant to step on it. Lauren Montgomery, who curated the show, reassured them it was okay to step on that artwork.
"At first I was going to make a peninsula," Maguire recalled his early plans for the floor installation. But once he saw the space, he decided on a central mass connected to two walls rather than one wall. The tag reads "Price upon request" because depending on the buyer's house, installing the floor at the new location may involve additional work. Maguire is willing to scale it up or down, "or I could make a completely new shape," he explained.
The Summer Selection also includes photographs by Elizabeth Wight from her book Detroit Now, which is available for sale at Whitdel Arts, and four portrait paintings by Ash Nowak. Wight's paperback book, published through MagCloud, features photographs of Detroiters like Philip Lauri, Emily Doerr and Paul Manganello. The Summer Selection will be on exhibit until July 28, according to the gallery's website.
Fashion designers, printmaker, impress at Mexicantown gallery
August 11, 2012 1:37 PM MST
Tiffany Best with her Detroit Warrior at Whitdel Arts. Photo by Alonso del Arte.
Lady Gaga would wear something like this: a dress made up of name tags for workers' uniforms. Tiffany Best's piece, placed on a mannequin especially designed for the purpose, is the headline piece at the Trashion show at Whitdel Arts, the plucky little gallery in Mexicantown. "A friend of mine tipped me off to an abandoned warehouse where they sew name patches on uniforms," Best recalled.
A lot of the name tags Best used on the dress are for workers named John, Jim, Phil, Rudy, Kirk and Louis. She had already given her friend Nate Hudson all the Nate tags. Phillip Allmond, a man who is currently going through a job training program from the Greening of Detroit, came to the opening reception. Best was impressed by Allmond's story of overcoming economic adversity caused by so-called conservative policies, and gave him a Phil name tag off her piece.
This was Allmond's first time at Whitdel, as well as Jakki Kirouac's. Kirouac, the driving force behind the Detroit Design Festival, had been looking forward to the Trashion show, and not just because her friend Emily Thornhill has a piece in the show. Thornhill's Rubber Warrior is a dress consisting of styrofoam, rubber, scrap metal and painted muslin. Many of the materials were found at locations in Detroit (Thornhill lives in Detroit's Midtown). The dress is something Alyssa Barenklasa, an illustrator who came to the reception, would wear.
Tiff Massey, an artist who designs necklaces and has three necklaces in the show, emphasized that she "positioned the found materials as you would set diamonds." Massey does not want to contribute to the misconceptions about her city.
Thornhill was invited to put art in the show by David O'Dell, an instructor at the International Academy of Design and Technology (IADT) who taught her Adobe Photoshop. Concurrent with the first two weeks of the Trashion show is an Emerging Artist exhibit of screen prints by David O'Dell "as a re-emerging artist," according to gallery director JenClare Gawaran.
"My father was a photographer in World War II," O'Dell recalled, and "the last freelance photographer at the Indy 500." Four of O'Dell's screen prints in the show are based on photographs his father took of the Beatles. "Paul [McCartney] is my favorite, and I know everyone says that, but I mean it," Gawaran explained.
The O'Dell exhibit will be up until August 21, while Trashion runs until September 1, according to the gallery's redesigned website. Gawaran and her subordinates are all impressed by Rebecca Vogel-McGowan's redesign. For a long time the gallery staff had been disappointed by the website and there was talk of a redesign, but nothing happened until Gawaran appointed Vogel-McGowan, an artist with a Web design certification from Wayne County Community College, to do the redesign. "I was amazed the first time I saw it," Gawaran said, remembering the first time she saw the redesigned website. "It reflects the space better, it's young and fresh," she added, also mentioning the gallery's increased presence on social media.
"Trashion" is "fashionable items made from found or recycled materials," according to UrbanDictionary.com.
Experts in color exhibit at Mexicantown gallery
September 16, 2012 4:24 PM MST
Julia Maiuri used her own hands as a model for one of her paintings at Whitdel Arts. Photo by Alonso del Arte.
The four artists in the show may or may not see more colors than the average human. But one thing is clear from their Tetrachromatic Realities show at Whitdel Arts, the plucky little gallery in Mexicantown: their superb handling of color can be appreciated by anyone. The four artists are Jim Hittinger, Julia Maiuri, Jill Neinhuis and Michael Reid, and the title of their show is based on the theoretical possibility of "an extra [fourth] cone in your eye so you can see more color," Neinhuis explained.
Scientific research suggests that women may be more likely to have the extra cone in their eyes. Reid dismisses the whole theory as "wishful thinking." There are tests on the Internet that purport to determine if the viewer has or doesn't have the extra cone, but these have generally met with skepticism from experts. Another visual test, the Roschach [sic: Rorschach] test sometimes used by psychoanalysts, was of more interest to Reid in his painting depicting "a contemporary descent from the cross."
Hittinger, the one artist who was unable to attend the opening reception, is already very skilled at suggesting a multitude of colors by only using black and white and shades thereof. His haunting painting of a military wedding had already been exhibited to great acclaim at the Detroit Artists Market a few months ago (Colin Darke from TheDetroiter.com called it one of "the strongest pieces of the show" there then).
Similarly lavish in shades within a restricted palette are the paintings of hands by Julia Maiuri, expertly handling variations of skin tone in mildly abstract compositions. "I really like hands, they are really expressive," Maiuri said. She and her friends had gone to several exhibits at Whitdel and it was the natural choice for a joint exhibit they had wanted to do. "We called our friend Rachel [Bourgault] ... back in March," Maiuri recalled.
The four artists have all studied at Wayne State University. Prof. Jim Nawara, one of the most respected members of the faculty at WSU, often asks his students which painting in their houses they would save in the hopefully hypothetical scenario of a fire. Of the pieces by Neinhuis at Whitdel, Nawara would save Ozark Awakening, a painting which Neinhuis admits came about thanks to a fortunate accident of her process. Another Neinhuis painting in the show shows an actual house in the Hubbard Farms neighborhood burning down; no word yet on whether the owner considers that an omen or not (Neinhuis herself now lives in Brightmoor).
The show runs until September 29, according to the gallery's website, which was recently redesigned by Rachel Vogel-McGowan.
Whitdel gets patrons to participate in art
October 8, 2012 2:26 PM MST
JenClare Gawaran helps Joe Lalande with the very long sheet he drew from Matt Lachowski's paper towel dispenser at Whitdel. Photo by Alonso del Arte.
Anyone can participate in art, as demonstrated by an exhibit of participatory art at Whitdel Arts, the plucky little gallery in Mexicantown. Engage: Detroit Interactive Art Exhibition features work by Angelo Conti, Erika Heffernan, Andy Malone, Matthew Lachowski, Tommy White, a few other artists and practically everyone who has come through the gallery since the opening reception last Saturday.
The interactive art pieces vary in their levels of participation as well as level of technology. One piece uses cranks, handles, gears and other mechanical means to allow patrons to draw on circular pieces of cardboard, while another piece requires patrons to install a special app on their mobile devices to participate in authoring a poem.
"I like working with something people take for granted," said Angelo Conti of his sidewalk installation. Conti videotaped a walk on a 5-foot wide sidewalk in Ferndale and then set up a projector to project the video over a scaled down replica of a sidewalk square which gallery patrons can walk over.
Joe Lalonde was very surprised by Matthew Lachowski's paper towel dispenser piece. Lachowski took a roll of paper towel, unrolled it to draw on one side of it, rolled it back up and put it into a dispenser 'donated' by Wayne State University. "Donated with a crowbar," clarified Alicia Biundo. "It comes from my tuition and broken dreams," added Lachowski.
Right from the first pull of the crank, Lalonde was surprised to see not a drawing like the ones that had been dispensed so far in the evening but prose. Lalonde kept pulling the crank and began to wonder whether or not he would get to the end of the roll without seeing a dotted line. After more than ten feet, he did finally reach the dotted line. Gallery official JenClare Gawaran helped Lalonde pin the long sheet to the wall.
The show will run almost to Halloween, according to the gallery's website. Patrons can come on Saturdays between noon and 3 p.m. or make an appointment.
Whitdel gets kids ready for Halloween
October 20, 2012 3:05 PM MST
If there were any kids in Southwest Detroit unsure on what to wear for Halloween, that's no longer the case, thanks to Whitdel Arts, the plucky little gallery in Mexicantown. Earlier today, they hosted a Halloween costume workshop for children and the young at heart to make themselves costumes with a wide variety of concepts. Emilio Garcia, for example, made himself a sheriff's costume. A little girl made herself a princess costume, while a young woman made herself a video game machine costume.
The workshop was the idea of Rachel Bourgault, who is in charge of membership at Whitdel Arts. "Oh no, she left it behind," Bourgault said of a tiny witch hat one of the workshop participants forgot to take with her. "We're going to make monthly workshops" a regular thing, gallery president JenClare Gawaran explained. "Ladybug Studios [in the same building as Whitdel] has monthly workshops and this was on the same day [and] it worked out great," Gawaran added.
The workshop participants all liked their costumes and are looking forward to going trick-or-treating on Halloween, which falls on a Wednesday this year. Whitdel's interactive art exhibit continues almost to Halloween, with a ceramic exhibit slated for November 9, according to the gallery's website.
COMMENTARY. Before you jump to the conclusion that JenClare Gawaran was pro-active in getting Asian American artists to exhibit at Whitdel, you need to know that Hiroko Lancour was an MFA student at Wayne State University, where Gawaran was adjunct faculty at the time.
Also, the Whitdel Arts board had this rule (don't know if they still do) that Whitdel Arts board members can't exhibit at Whitdel Arts. Therefore, Gawaran being from the Phillipines was irrelevant for the percentage of exhibiting artists who are Asian.