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Published: February 25th 2012
Diego Rivera, "Detroit Industry"
A portion of a room-sized mural at the Detroit Institute of ArtsToday is the first official day of Movement.
The sky is threatening rain, which has me worried.
According to the website, the festival goes in any weather short of a major thunderstorm.
Detroit Institute of the Arts
Before heading downtown, I squeezed in one of Detroit’s most important cultural institutions.
As noted yesterday, Detroit used to be one of the most important industrial cities in the US.
Like the bankers of Charlotte, (see
Adventures in Banktown) Detroit’s industrial tycoons wanted cultural cache to go with their financial success.
One of the biggest beneficiaries of their largess was the
Detroit Institute of the Arts, which is now one of the ten largest art museums in the country.
They are one of the few big museums that allow patrons to post pictures of the collection online, hence their appearance in this blog.
Like most big art museums, this one is
comprehensive, covering every type of art imaginable.
Given the time I had available, I focused on what I like the most, modern art.
The most famous work in the entire museum is in the main rotunda, a mural called
Detroit Industry.
It was painted
Detroit Institute of the Arts
The Neoclassical facade of the Detroit Institute of the Arts, which is a work of art itself. by famous Mexican mural artist
Diego Rivera.
The theme is the benefits and costs of industry.
Industry brings prosperity, but also causes pollution.
Workers were paid well (at the time) but have little control over their lives.
Advances in chemistry bring live saving medicine but also the chemical warfare of World War I.
The museum hands out a brochure that explains the symbolism.
This is the first work by Rivera that I have seen in person.
From there, I went through the
modern art galleries.
They are roughly organized by movement.
All of the big names are represented, plus some artist few have heard of.
They have one of
Van Gogh’s Self Portraits, one of
Cezanne’s pictures of Mont Sainte-Victorie, a self portrait by
Max Beckmann, multiple paintings by
Pablo Picasso, and on and on.
DIA Art Education
The labels for the work are unusually through.
This museum is aimed at ordinary Detroit residents, not art connoisseurs.
Several works had display stands in front of them that encourage people to analyze a particular piece of art.
For example, the museum owns a famous painting by Matisse of
a room interior done in bold primary colors,
The Window.
A real room looks nothing like this.
The display stand encourages people to think about Matisse’s color choices.
Why did he choose them?
What do they emphasize within the scene?
How does a viewer react seeing them in the picture?
Most museums restrict this sort of thing to art appreciation brochures for families, if they have it at all.
I initially found the displays distracting but ultimately grew to enjoy them.
One of the best panels sits in front of
Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket by
James McNeil Whistler.
While the painting accurately shows fireworks over London, its real purpose is an investigation of color combinations.
Critic John Ruskin proceeded to describe it as a fraud, just a bunch of paint splotches on canvas instead of an actual painting!
In 1878, Whistler
sued him for libel!
The panel asks visitors to take the role of a juror in the case.
What makes a painting a real painting?
The artist’s intent, their technique, the materials used, how the viewer responds to it, how other people respond to it, some combination of the above, something
else entirely?
The panel leaves the answer up to the viewer.
After modern art come the
contemporary art galleries.
These cover a wide range of media, including things traditionally thought of as folk art and crafts.
The museum has an entire room of political art by local
African American artists.
This is a very important display in a city with the history of racial tension that Detroit has (one of the most destructive
race riots in history occurred in Detroit in 1967).
The museum also has a display of work I have never seen before, contemporary art from Haiti.
Most of it was figurative paintings celebrating Haiti’s past.
I really enjoyed my time at this museum.
They have been forced by circumstances to expand their audience beyond traditional art museum patrons, and they have done an admirable job.
This was one of the few art museums where I did not need an art history background (which I have) to fully appreciate what I was seeing.
Others should learn from their example.
Detroit Coneys
After the museum, I needed lunch.
I found it
Dodge Fountain
The Dodge Fountain in Hart Plaza, shot through the rain. downtown.
Like Philadelphia and cheese steaks, Detroit has made its own heart unhealthy contribution to street food culture.
It’s called the
Coney Island, either a hot dog or ground beef covered in mustard and chili, served in a hot dog roll.
Wars over favorites come with the territory.
Two of the best, and bitter rivals, are family owned restaurants that are right next to each other,
American and Lafayette.
Today, I ate at
Lafayette.
The storefront looks like it hasn’t changed in at least fifty years, with old stainless steel counters and walls covered in sports paraphernalia.
The staff talk quickly in really thick Greek accents; I had to have the Detroit native next to me translate!
The food was served fast, it was really good, and the prices look like misprints.
This place is street food at its best.
Movement
After lunch, I headed for the festival.
Today turned out to be a study in dedication.
Rain started falling soon after I got there, and did not stop until the final sets.
One hears the festival before seeing it, deep base beats
Made in Detroit
Dancers feel the groove at the Made In Detroit stage at Movement echoing between the buildings.
Once at the riverfront, I encountered a sea of people wearing outfits of all sorts.
The lines were long, but the staff did a good job moving people through them.
The festival is held on
Hart Plaza on the Detroit riverfront.
The plaza consists of a large concrete space with patches of grass and trees in places.
The
Renaissance Center towers over one side.
The central feature is a large fountain made of a steel hoop, the
Dodge Fountain by Isamu Noguchi.
Yes, it's named after the founder of the eponymous car brand.
The festival itself had four stages.
The main stage was located at the bottom of a deep tiered pit.
The tiers give a really good view.
The primary side stage was located next door.
In many places, people hear music from both at once.
The third stage is located on the other side of the plaza, stuck in a corner.
Access to this stage was difficult, which had important implications later.
The last stage was behind the main stage in a group of trees.
I
Movement second stage
The second stage at Movement liked the festival format in that I could wander from stage to stage at will, taking in a wide variety of acts.
This was very important, because I’m sort of picky about the music I like.
It needs to have compositional complexity, with lots of different elements playing off each other.
Achieving this with electronic music can be difficult, because it’s very tempting to just find something that works and repeat it to death.
An additional factor today was the rain; I spent a good part of the time hiding under trees and tents trying to stay dry.
An act had to be really good to draw me out.
The two stages I enjoyed the most today were the two smallest, which have the most adventurous booking policy.
The one behind the main stage is called Made In Detroit.
True to its name, it only booked Michigan artists.
They played a wide variety of music; everything from purist techno to choppy remixes of funk songs.
Some of them worked for me, and some of them didn’t.
It helped that this stage was in the trees
Movement symbolic bridge
This structure sits on the pathway between the main stage and the second stage. It didn't keep out the rain, but it sure looked good. which provided some protection from the rain.
A taste of the scene:
The other stage I liked was the one in the corner, at least for a while.
The late acts today featured dub step and jungle, two English styles created by crossing techno with Jamaican sounds.
Dup step features buzzy keyboards with lots of reveb and distortion over slow base beats, and is one of the hottest (some would say ‘overexposed’) dance variants currently.
Jungle emphasizes bass, played at ridiculous speeds.
The final acts on this stage were two superstars of these genres,
Skrillex and
Goldie.
The difficulty of access became really important at this point.
So many people tried to cram into the small space to hear them that people literally passed out on the floor.
The acts were forced to stop their sets multiple times and tell people to spread out.
I quickly reached the point where I couldn’t handle it anymore and squeezed out of there.
A taste of Skrillex's show:
I had time to kill, so I saw the last main stage act
Movement crowd
A tiny sample of the crowd at Movement, once the rain finally stopped. of the night,
Felix Da Housecat.
Felix is from Chicago, and plays rhythm and blues influenced dance music.
Unfortunately, he likes to reuse the same ideas over and over, so it quickly became boring.
The most notable part of his set was a stretch featuring gospel vocals over techno beats, which worked remarkably well.
Today was fun, but also trying due to the weather.
According to the reports, tomorrow should be much better.
I certainly hope so.
Thunder Over Louisville was partly ruined due to storms (see
The Few, The Proud, The Freezing to Death), and I’d hate to see this festival ruined as well.
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