The James Pearson Duffy Department of Art and Art History is pleased to present IN THE AIR: VOICES FROM DETROIT AND BEYOND, September 2020 through April 2021. The series includes works created by local and national artists in response to the global pandemic and racial injustice, featured on a billboard, located at the corner of S. Woodward and E. Canfield, Detroit. A total of eight solo-presentations, each one month in duration, will be on view beginning September 15, 2020.

Through utter shock, through grief, through disgust, through fear, through ANGER, through heartbreak -- through it all, we work. Through this chaos, we work. For our families, our communities, our sanctuaries, we work. Through exhaustion, we work. Through a pandemic, we are working.

The program Brushes With Cancer pairs patients with artists whose works make visible a disease that can be invisible and isolating.

The Uptown Triennial 2020 exhibition, the second iteration in the series, presents the work of contemporary artists in dialogue with the Harlem Renaissance, a defining moment in American modernism and African-American cultural history, during its centennial year.

“The Girl with the D Earring” by Detroit artist Sydney G. James will adorn the western wall of the Chroma building, located at 2937 E. Grand Blvd. The art is a modern Detroit take on Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” deemed the most beautiful painting in the Netherlands.

Follow along with Roy Feldman and Chris Schneider as they go on a photographic exploration of the Midwest and Plains States. They will be posting Polaroid photographs taken along the way on our Instagram account. Search the hashtag #RibbonofHighway to view them all.

From Detour Detroit

“We need an ever-present reminder that we do not accept this shit at all”

Sydney G. James’ art is a call to action: to see Blackness — especially Black women; to remember that Black people too are free; and to know that Black lives are complex, resplendent and worthy.

Please join us in congratulating these outstanding artists and writers!

Vans, El Club team up for custom sneaker during COVID-19 crisis

The sneaker is designed by Freddy Diaz, a Southwest Detroit artist known as SW Freddy, who got the call from El Club last week to put together a design and pulled an all-nighter to get it done on deadline. Diaz is also working on an upcoming gallery show which is set to do a virtual opening on April 17.
"It was literally crunch mode times three," Diaz says.

For his latest solo exhibition, Detroit photographer Kenny Karpov took to the Mediterranean Sea for a closer look at Europe's refugee crisis.

Many of the photos show Black bodies packed onto ship decks, calling to mind a modern-day slave ship. What gets lost in the mainstream media narrative of the refugees, Karpov believes, is that any of the African and Middle Eastern refugees are in fact fleeing the horrors of modern-day slavery, human trafficking, famine, and war.