“Black is joy and pain.” – Brian Day, Detroit

We’re pleased to share that Brian Day’s work has been selected for inclusion in the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s initiative, Future of the American City.

Give back to the community and support the Ruth Ellis Center in Detroit.

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 paintings by Marcia Freedman and Ani Garabedian in Figuratively Dreamingpresent a current interpretation and exploration of a genre that is versed and familiar but still evolving. Abstract painting rose from a multi-century evolution that moved away from the realistic religion-based storytelling of the Italian Renaissance through the French Impressionists and on to schools of thought like Dada.

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.