BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MICH.- Cranbrook Art Museum is now opening a series of original exhibitions that examine the importance of legacy within the artistic community of Detroit by showcasing artists of the city’s past, present, and future – while identifying the threads that connect them across generations. The museum will also highlight the career of a former Artist-in-Residence of Cranbrook Academy of Art, whose work and teaching inspired hundreds of students over his decades-long tenure.
“This series of exhibitions underscores Cranbrook Art Museum’s commitment to showcasing our deep and intertwined artistic community, whether an emerging talent or a legendary veteran,” said Andrew Satake Blauvelt, Director of Cranbrook Art Museum. “This series of shows spans more than nine decades and confirms the consistent richness and diversity of Detroit’s artistic output.”
The exhibitions open to the public today, October 28. A special ArtMember Preview Party was held on October 27, 2023.
Skilled Labor: Black Realism in Detroit
October 28, 2023–March 3, 2024
This new exhibition opening at Cranbrook Art Museum focuses on a community of artists who have worked in Detroit during the last decade and use their highly skilled hands to represent the Black body in personal and cultural contexts through their work. Co-curated by Cranbrook Art Museum Chief Curator Laura Mott and Detroit artist Mario Moore, the exhibition will feature 20 artists with local connections, ranging from emerging to established figures. Skilled Labor: Black Realism in Detroit aims to illustrate the range, depth, nuance, and variety of Black life through each artist’s unique approach to figuration. Collectively, the artists are using their skills to reframe historical and cultural norms through acts of representation. The exhibition features a spectrum of lived experiences—joy, intimacy, reverie, danger, and tension—through this artistic lens. “Skilled Labor: Black Realism in Detroit showcases a creative phenomenon that is homegrown in Detroit—a multi-generational artistic network fueled by an organic educational system of peers, mentors, and mentees learning from one another about concept, technical expertise, and art history," said Laura Mott, Chief Curator of Cranbrook Art Museum. Mario Moore added, "This is a landmark exhibition that acknowledges the immense talent that has been coming from our city for decades", said Moore. "This exhibit shows the community created by these artists as well as the influence of artist LeRoy Foster, who never garnered the national recognition he deserved and will be shown alongside his artistic progeny in his first ever solo museum show."
Many of the artists featured also have connections to Cranbrook Art Museum’s sister institutions, Cranbrook Academy of Art and Cranbrook Schools. Those who have graduated or are current students are noted with their degree and department below: Artists featured in Skilled Labor: Black Realism in Detroit include Christopher Batten, Taurus Burns, Cydney Camp (MFA Painting 2023), Ijania Cortez, Cailyn Dawson, Bakpak Durden, Conrad Egyir (MFA Painting 2018), Jonathan Harris, Sydney G. James, Gregory Johnson, Richard Lewis, Hubert Massey, Mario Moore, Sabrina Nelson, Patrick Quarm, Joshua Rainer (expected MFA Painting 2025), Senghor Reid (Cranbrook Schools Faculty, 2012-present), Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Rashaun Rucker (expected MFA Print Media 2024), and Tylonn J. Sawyer.
Skilled Labor: Black Realism in Detroit is organized by Cranbrook Art Museum and curated by artist Mario Moore and Laura Mott, Chief Curator, Cranbrook Art Museum, with assistance from Andrew Ruys de Perez, the Jeanne and Ralph Graham Curatorial Fellow. The exhibition is generously supported by the Gilbert Family Foundation, the Michigan Arts and Culture Council, the George Francoeur Art Museum Exhibition Fund, the David Klein and Kate Ostrove Exhibition Fund, Samara (Johnson) Furlong & Mark Furlong, Karen & Drew Bacon, Ethan & Gretchen Davidson, Linda & Rod Gillum, and ArtMembers of Cranbrook Art Museum.
LeRoy Foster: Solo Show
October 28, 2023–March 3, 2024
As one of Detroit’s most intriguing characters, LeRoy Foster (1925–1993) was a leading figure in Detroit’s Black artistic community, and in many ways, served as an inspiration for artists featured in the Art Museum’s accompanying exhibition, Skilled Labor: Black Realism in Detroit. Best known for his large mural Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1972), on view at the Douglass Branch of the Detroit Public Library, he was known colloquially as, “the Michelangelo of Detroit.” He studied art at Detroit’s Cass Tech High School, the Society of Arts and Crafts (now the College for Creative Studies), and likely took classes at Cranbrook Academy of Art. He also studied overseas in London and Rome, where he grew his skills in figuration. While researching the exhibition, the mural Renaissance City (1978) was recovered from storage at Detroit’s Cass Technical High School. The mural had previously been installed in the school’s old building from the early 1980s until 2005—this exhibition will be the first time it has been on view in nearly 20 years. The work is undergoing restoration at Cranbrook Art Museum thanks to the efforts of Rochelle Riley, Director of Arts and Culture for the City of Detroit, and the Office of Arts, Culture, and Entrepreneurship. The restored work will debut in the exhibition and be returned to the new Cass Technical High School to be placed on permanent view to the public.
Foster was openly gay during a time of hostility and oppression toward the LGBTQ+ community and earned the support and respect of activist Ruth Ellis, artist Charles McGhee, and philanthropist Charles Wright. “Foster’s artistic vision did not fit with the art world’s expectations and trends during his lifetime, which left him without representation and also without historic scholarship about his work and practice,” says Laura Mott, Chief Curator of Cranbrook Art Museum. “We have diligently tracked down many of his works, from museums to private collections, and restored others, in order to put together the first exhibition that shines a light on this important Detroit artist.”
The exhibition at Cranbrook is Foster’s first significant recognition from a museum, and the exhibition title, Solo Show, is also a testament to the freedom in which he conducted his life. LeRoy Foster: Solo Show is organized by Cranbrook Art Museum and curated by artist Mario Moore and Laura Mott, Chief Curator, Cranbrook Art Museum, with assistance from Andrew Ruys de Perez, the Jeanne and Ralph Graham Curatorial Fellow. The exhibition is generously supported by the Gilbert Family Foundation, the George Francoeur Art Museum Exhibition Fund, the David Klein and Kate Ostrove Exhibition Fund, and ArtMembers of Cranbrook Art Museum.
Carl Toth: Reordering Fictions
October 28, 2023–February 25, 2024
Carl Toth (1947–2022) spent nearly 40 years in metro Detroit, leading the photography program at Cranbrook Academy of Art from 1972 to 2007. His artistic practice influenced generations of young artists and his interest in the literary arts intersected with many like-minded people in Detroit over the years. A pioneer of alternative photographic techniques, he sought to expand the field of photography through his exploration of the SX-70 Polaroid camera and his adoption of the photocopier as his camera lens of choice. While teaching at Cranbrook Academy of Art, Toth brought a personal interest in literature and literary theory to the Academy at a time when these ideas were just beginning to redirect the medium. The title of the exhibition, Reordering Fictions, is a nod to Toth’s affinity for the written word and the constructed nature of the realities that accompany photographic representation. Carl Toth: Reordering Fictions is the first museum exhibition to reassess Toth’s legacy in photography. His intricate use of collage and photomontage will be explored, which resulted in masterful compositions of complex still-life tableaux. This exhibition will also feature earlier series by the artist including black and white photographs that engage with photographic tropes from snapshots to landscapes and hand-colored collages that expand the spatial and temporal constraints of a single frame. By uniting these diverse series and artistic approaches, a coherent narrative emerges, revealing the thread that runs throughout Toth's career—a relentless exploration of the photographic image creation and the multifaceted meanings they take on.
Carl Toth: Reordering Fictions is organized by Cranbrook Art Museum and curated by Kat Goffnett, Assistant Curator of Collections. The exhibition is supported, in part, by the George Francoeur Art Museum Exhibition Fund, ArtPack Services, Inc., and ArtMembers of Cranbrook Art Museum.
Ash Arder: Flesh Tones
October 28, 2023–February 25, 2024
Ash Arder is a transdisciplinary, researched-focused artist from Flint, Michigan, whose work investigates ecological and industrial systems, especially in consideration of the power dynamics between humans, machines, and the natural world. She is a 2018 graduate of the Fiber department at Cranbrook Academy of Art, and Flesh Tones is her first solo museum exhibition. It is also the second installment of Cranbrook Art Museum’s Fresh Paint series, which highlights new work from Detroit-area artists. Arder’s practice illuminates moments of intimacy, tenderness, and connection within industrial spaces. Through deeply personal family narratives, Arder’s practice explores the impact and legacy of the automotive industry in southeastern Michigan. The departure point for Flesh Tones is a photograph of her late parents celebrating her baby shower at the General Motors factory where they were employed. By extracting and highlighting different objects, textures, and details from the assembly line, Arder contrasts the cold, hard forms of machines with the warm, soft bodies of the humans who operate them. The intertwining of personal and industrial histories continues with Arder’s manipulation of a 1987 Cadillac Sedan de Ville – her family car from childhood – that she sourced from a junkyard and deconstructed.
Flesh Tones encompasses a celebration of community brought together through industry while also exposing the complicated nature of aligning identity and well-being with material possessions. Arder’s work memorializes the often obsolete, ephemeral residue of a system at a crossroads in a time of climate change. Rather than a melancholy goodbye to the proverbial, resource-intensive machine, she offers an optimistic rebirth through a demonstration of solar power. Arder harnesses the source of renewable energy to ask who is keeping whom—or what—alive in a time defined by inextricable human-machine relationships.
Ash Arder: Flesh Tones is organized by Cranbrook Art Museum and curated by Andrew Ruys de Perez, the Jeanne and Ralph Graham Curatorial Fellow. This exhibition is generously supported by the Gilbert Family Foundation and the George Francoeur Art Museum Exhibition Fund.
