Ethiopia at the Crossroads @ Toledo Museum of Art

On October 8, 2024

In Ceramic, Paintings, Photography, Prints, Sculpture

House of Yatreda (est. 2021), Abyssinian Queen, 2024, 1/1 NFT single-channel video. “Beneath the dense canopy of an ancient forest that divides her realm and blurs the line between history and legend, the Abyssinian queen journeys from one kingdom to another within historic Abyssinia, carried with solemn grace by her devoted attendants.” All photo images by K.A. Letts unless noted.

Ethiopia’s long history as an important but often overlooked center of world art is getting a sweeping survey in the Toledo Museum of Art’s newly opened exhibition, “Ethiopia at the Crossroads.” From now until November 10, images and objects from the horn of east Africa illustrate the region’s importance as a point of contact for trade and cultural exchange beginning in the 7^th Century BCE. Myths and stories derived from a wealth of sources, from indigenous religions to archaic Judaism to Byzantine Christianity and Islam, form the basis for a composite culture that is uniquely coherent and remarkably complex.

In antiquity, the Nile provided Ethiopia’s traders and envoys with access to Egypt and the civilizations of the Mediterranean Sea. Contact with the Byzantine empire brought eastern orthodox Christianity, which then developed, in conjunction with other local mythic influences, its own idiosyncratic religious identity. Ethiopia was only the second country—after Armenia–to adopt Christianity as its state religion in the 4^th century CE.

(l. to r.) Cross with St. Blaise, 10-11 c., copper alloy (Walters Art Museum), Processional Cross, 10 c. – 12 c., brass alloy, (Dallas Museum of Art), Processional Cross, 13 c. bronze, (Institute of Ethiopian Studies Abbas Ababa)

“Ethiopia at the Crossroads“ can be described as two exhibitions in one, actually. One collection of artworks, along with extensive photo documentation, centers on the country’s rich and lengthy art history. Another strand of the exhibition, woven seamlessly into the historical record, presents the work of contemporary Ethiopian artists and makes a convincing case that these living creatives are successfully carrying their unique cultural identity into the 21^st century.

After entering through the circular rotunda at the beginning of the exhibition, museum visitors will journey through a complex narrative of the region’s cultural patrimony that includes more than 225 artifacts stretching over 1750 years. Devotional painted icons, manuscripts, coins, textiles and basketry, metalwork and carved wood crosses of various scales from periods from 7 century BCE through the 19^th century CE form a beautiful and emotionally resonant parade that marches down the center of the main gallery. The exhibition design features a long, purpose-built terracotta-colored display structure that organizes what could easily be a baffling collection of diverse influences and objects. On the outer perimeter of the central structure, smaller groupings of objects amplify elements of Ethiopia’s long and complex story. Included in these collections are small, glazed black terracotta figurines characteristic of the Ethiopian Jewish community and wooden Waakaa memorial figurines from the Konso people of South Ethiopia. Illuminated manuscripts of both Christian and Islamic provenance are represented as well as magic healing scrolls that illustrate the hybrid beliefs characterizing Ethiopia’s Orthodox Christianity.

Folding Processional Icon in the Shape of a Fan, late 15 c., tempera with ink on parchment, wood handles, 24 ¼” x 154 1/8” x 4 ¾” (Walters Art Museum) photo: Toledo Museum of Art

The gallery holds a particularly rich trove of religious artifacts from the liturgical history of Ethiopia. A standout is the rare Folding Processional Icon in the Shape of a Fan, created in the late 15^th century and one of only 6 known to exist. Illustrating the influence of European artists in icon painting are two side-by-side pictures representing the Madonna and Child. The two paintings demonstrate how European religious tropes were routinely translated into Ethiopian visual language. One is by Ethiopian artist Fare Sayon (active 1445-1480,) and the other is from the workshop of Venetian Bartolomeo Vivarini (ca. 1485.) Using the vivid colors characteristic of the Ethiopian palette, Sayon makes the image his own by adding two flanking angels important in Ethiopian Christianity, Michael and Gabriel, and interpolates elaborate textile patterns into the figures’ garments.

(l. – r), Fare Sayon (Ethiopian) Diptych (right panel) Virgin Mary and Christ Child with Archangels Michael and Gabriel, ca. 1445-1480, glue tempera on panel Workshop of Bartolomeo Vivarini, Venice, Madonna and Child, egg tempera on panel.

The co-location of work by contemporary Ethiopian artists alongside historical artifacts demonstrates how a coherent identity based upon shared myths and traditions has persisted over time. Of particular interest is work by the House of Yatreda, a family-based artist collective now in a year-long residence at the Toledo Museum of Art. At the entrance to the exhibition, a large photo portrait (Mother of Menelik) minted on blockchain combines the traditional folklore of Ethiopia with web-3 technologies. The House of Yatreda’s leader, Kiye Tadele, poses as Makadda, the legendary Queen of Sheba, pregnant with Menelik, the offspring of King Solomon and founder of Ethiopia’s Solomonid dynasty. In a large gallery towards the back of the exhibition, a series of large-scale black and white single-channel videos by the House of Yatreda, entitled Abbysinian Queen, is on display. Described as “in the style of tizita (nostalgia or longing for the past),” the narrative follows the journey of an imaginary Ethiopian queen traveling through mystical forests to new kingdoms.

House of Yatreda (est. 2021), Mother of Menelik, 2023, NFT single channel video, photo: Toledo Museum of Art

The many creatives in the exhibition are a testament to the ongoing vibrancy of the region’s visual culture. Elias Sime of Addis Ababa, London-born Theo Eshetu, and Helina Metaferia of Washington, D.C., among many others, showcase the ongoing cultural significance of present-day Ethiopian art. Their work demonstrates that the artists share a strong stylistic correspondence between their art’s historical antecedents and their own work. Elias Sime’s Tightrope, Zooming (2012), now in the collection of the Toledo Museum of Art, is an elaborate longitudinal mosaic made from discarded elements of digital technology—circuit boards, computer keyboards, and the like. Helina Metaferia has created her version of a traditional metalwork crown that carries a meaning that is both royal and religious. With it, she honors Empress Taytu Betul, a national hero of the resistance against the invading Italian army in 1896. The traditional crown installed next to it shows, once again, the common sensibility that unites these artists with their patrimony.

Elias Sime, Tightrope, Zooming (2012), reclaimed electronic components and assorted small ephemera on panel, 83 ½” x 313” photo: Toledo Museum of Art

The abundant and varied collection of artifacts that makes up “Ethiopia at the Crossroads” is deserving of multiple visits, but if you can make only one trip, the beautifully illustrated and scholarly catalog of the exhibition is highly recommended and available from the Toledo Museum. Ethiopia at the Crossroads, edited by Christine Sciacca, is a comprehensive introduction to this neglected yet significant sub-section of world art history.

(l. – r.) Crown, 18-19 c., brass (Peabody Essex Museum) Helina Metaferia, Crown (Taytu) 2023, brass sculpture with etching (Toledo Museum of Art).

Ethiopia at the Crossroads @ Toledo Museum of Art, on display through November 10, 2024. https://toledomuseum.org/exhibitions/ethiopia-at-the-crossroads

Lester Johnson @ Stamelos Gallery

By Sean Bieri

On September 27, 2024

In Mixed Media, Paintings, Prints

Four: Lester Johnson’s Selected Works, September 12-December 8, 2024, Stamelos Gallery Center, University of Michigan Dearborn

Lester Johnson, Four: Lester Johnson’s Selected Works, Installation View

Before visiting the exhibition Four: Lester Johnson’s Selected Works, give a listen to the 1954 jazz standard, performed by the Miles Davis Quintet, that lends the show its title (if you forget, there’s a QR code near the front of the gallery that will take you to it). Calling the tune “toe-tapping” is a little corny, but — see if you can resist. A wall plaque says the song celebrates “four cherished things in life: truth, honor, happiness, and love.” Those all seem to be in short supply of late, replaced instead by bias, expediency, dopamine hits, and heart emojis. But there’s plenty of all four on vivid display on the walls of the Stamelos Gallery, as venerable Detroit artist and educator Lester Johnson takes every opportunity to share his spotlight with a pantheon of family, friends, artists, ancestors, teachers, musicians, and personal heroes that have helped shape and inform his art over the course of his long career. Consider the second part of the show’s title: it’s not “Selected Works of Lester Johnson,” but “Lester Johnson’s Selected Works,” a subtle difference that shifts the focus more to the works, all of which are, to some extent, group efforts, even if only via musical inspiration. This is true of the work of many artists, but Johnson, in the titles of his art and in his commentary on wall labels throughout the show, foregrounds this communal aspect, never missing a chance to generously acknowledge his collaborators and muses.

Lester Johnson, Elaine’s Gift, 2010 Fabric, fiberglass, paint, and tape.

Notice the number of titles that include the names of others: Marlene’s Gift; Elaine’s Gift; Claudia’s Choice, a nod to a friend who brought back printed cloth from a trip to Africa for Johnson to use in his art; Lynn’s Song, a multicolored work in cast paper dedicated to Lynn Forgach, director of the Exeter paper company in New York, with whom Johnson collaborated in the early ‘80s at the suggestion of another great Detroit creative, Al Loving. The tag for the piece even includes nods of gratitude to the student apprentices at Exeter for helping Johnson expand his abilities.

Lester Johnson, Alma Thomas, Digital Print, 2018.

The painter Alma Thomas, whose mosaic-like abstractions share the bright hues used in many of Johnson’s works, is honored in a tapestry-like digital print. The print itself is mostly in muted browns and blues, a collage combining African motifs, a photo of women stitching a quilt, a gnarled glove holding an auto worker’s ID badge, and a picture of Thomas at work on a painting, suggesting a kinship across time and space between these various forms of the labor of Black hands.

Lester Johnson, A Garland of Praise Songs for Rosa Parks, 2013 Fabric, wood, and paint.

A Garland of Praise Songs for Rosa Parks is dedicated to the storied civil rights icon, as well as to America’s longest-serving Black judge, Detroit’s Damon Keith. (The piece resides in the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights at Wayne State University.) It’s the largest example on display here of Johnson’s “totems” — staff-like cylinders of wood or fiberglass, wrapped in twine, tape, reeds, digital prints featuring colorful patterns, or, more often and most strikingly, fabric printed with African designs. Attributed on Johnson’s website to his African and Native American spiritual heritage, the totems call for “a cross-cultural exchange of energy and vision.” Standing vertically in collections of eight, ten, as many as 26, most of the totems are a few feet tall, but even those made of paper that are no taller than one’s hand project an aura of strength, confidence, and authority. The totems appear again worked into Johnson’s multiculturally-inspired “kimonos” — robe-shaped wall hangings weaving together Japanese, African and Australian Aboriginal influences. Built into the kimonos like columns or spines, the totems lend the garment-like constructions an almost architectural stability. The kimonos displayed here are named in honor of Nelson Mandela, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Egyptian queen Nefertiti.

Lester Johnson, Kimono Nefertiti, 2009 Mixed media.

Johnson was born in Detroit in 1937; born that same year, just a few blocks from where Johnson would grow up, was the Blue Bird Inn, the legendary nightclub that hosted a stellar line-up of modern jazz players in the 1950s and ‘60s. Jazz music has greatly informed Johnson’s work through the years, particularly that of Miles Davis, who lived in Detroit briefly in the mid-‘50s. Davis and his music are mentioned a number of times in Four. An airbrushed painting from 1972 named for his influential 1959 album Kind Of Blue features arcs and angular shapes, leaning back to the right against a blue background. The shapes are striped with what look like tire tracks, as if pointing out the musician’s Motor City connection. As recently as this year, Johnson evoked Davis again with In A Silent Way Miles Davis and Wayne Shorter Tribute, an upward-pointing triangle of nine interlocking pyramids, painted a cool blue. The many facets of the structure cast shadows and catch the light, creating varying tones and intensities of color, perhaps even suggesting dignified facial features.

Lester Johnson, In A Silent Way Miles Davis and Wayne Shorter Tribute, Mixed media, 2024.

Johnson honors other musicians here as well. The woman known as “Mama Africa,” South African anti-apartheid activist and Afropop star Miriam Makeba, is commemorated with a collection of twelve richly patterned totems. Motown’s Gladys Knight inspired a 1974 print that comprises several panels of hard-edged black-and-white angles and stripes, like noir-ish depictions of urban architecture, countered by single red square with a record-like circle inside, a point of stability in a field of anxiety. John Coltrane Print from 1969 has the hip feel of jazz album graphic design. A 2005 abstract painting, showing colorful vertical stripes reminiscent of Johnson’s totems emerging from behind a green triangle, is named for the Luther Vandross song Never Too Much. A similarly vivid abstract work from the same year, named for the Thelonious Monk standard Round Midnight, features (ironically) areas of sunny yellow intersected by a purple field and a blue triangle, suggesting a passageway.

Lester Johnson, Total Eclipse, Acrylic, 1971.

One of the few works here that doesn’t bear someone’s name is Total Eclipse from 1971, an acrylic painting made up of 35 squares with circles inside, each intersected and subdivided by lines and angles like a pie chart. Despite the title, none of the circles is entirely occluded, and none are without shadow. Each “lunar” disc has some part shaded in, and each angular segment of the squares is painted in varying shades of blue and purple, or else white. It’s not a scientific diagram nor a mystical chart, but it looks like it could be either if you knew how to read it. As it is, the image seems to flicker like a multi-faceted gem, an ode perhaps to diversity and perpetual change.

There’s a lot of “cool” in this show — cool colors, cool music — but the overall vibe is a warm one, celebratory and grateful. Seen as a portrait of Lester Johnson, the exhibit is testimony to how any of us are, in many ways, collages of the people we’ve let into our lives — the ones who have informed and inspired us. It might be a fruitful and fun question to ask one’s self: “Whose names would appear on the wall tags if this was my show?”

Four: Lester Johnson’s Selected Works, September 12-December 8, 2024, Stamelos Gallery Center, University of Michigan Dearborn.

Jim Chatelain @ Oakland University Art Gallery

By Michael Hodges

On September 21, 2024

In Drawing, Paintings

An installation view of Jim Chatelain: Correcting Past Mistakes, will be up at the Oakland University Art Gallery through November 24, 2024 (Photos courtesy of OUAG, except where noted.)

Continuing its tradition of outstanding exhibitions, the Oakland University Art Gallery presents Jim Chatelain: Correcting Past Mistakes, up through November 24. The 40 works on display, created between 2001 and 2024, represent an eruption of color and tangled abstraction, in some cases intriguingly intestinal in appearance. Altogether, the show opens a fascinating window on the non-figurative work of the celebrated Cass Corridor artist, now in his mid-70s, who’s still producing at an impressive clip.

Many people may be familiar with Chatelain’s earliest paintings that caused a sensation in the much-talked-about 1978 “Bad” Painting show at Manhattan’s New Museum — crudely outlined urban figures of the sort you might have seen on Cass Avenue in those years, rendered with seemingly slapdash brushstrokes and an air of menace. Subsequent figurative work involved a weirdly magnificent series of facial portraits, full of distorted and bulbous features, that – never mind their odd appearance – manage to be both poignant and disturbing in equal measure.

In a biographical essay for the Paul Kotula Projects gallery in Ferndale, Robert Storr – who long headed the Museum of Modern Art’s department of painting and sculpture – urged art enthusiasts to “take a walk on the wild side with [Chatelain] as your guide. You’ll meet a cast of hard-bitten urban types, [with] extraordinary toughness whose heavily lined faces bear the unmistakable trace of what it takes to just keep going in the late modern purgatory that is big city life in our time. Chatelain knows these people inside and out; he’s their recording angel.”

Jim Chatelain, Untitled, Acrylic paint, paint pen 0n linen paper, 24 x 20 inches, 2023.

Compared with those gritty predecessors, one of the delights of Correcting Past Mistakes is just how beautiful these twisted abstracts, often suggesting collapse and calamity, really are. Curator Ryan Standfest, an artist who teaches at Oakland and has long been a Chatelain admirer, describes the works as “frenzied and active” with an “aura of tumult.” Yet these are meticulously crafted works, never mind their vaguely cartoon-like appearance. “The paintings are vibrant, with colors that pop,” Standfest says. “One color doesn’t cancel out the other – they support each other quite well.” This echoes the artist’s own appraisal. In an interview with Standfest in the show’s handsome catalog, Chatelain describes his choice in colors as “really pop-y. My palette is really like that. It’s the blue of the Superman costume and the red of the cape.”

Chatelain, who maintains a studio in Ferndale as well as one in Delhi, New York, about 120 miles from Manhattan, hails from Findlay, Ohio. In 1967, he transferred from Findlay College to Wayne State University, sight unseen, graduating with a BFA in 1971. While at Wayne, he studied painting with John Egner, a professor who was a co-founder of the legendary Willis Gallery and a key mentor to much of the early Cass Corridor talent. Their collective work finally got the official stamp of approval in 1980 when the Detroit Institute of Arts pulled together the seminal show Kick Out the Jams: Detroit’s Cass Corridor 1963-1977.

Jim Chatelain, Basket, Acrylic paint pen with vinyl paint on paper and mat board, 21 ½ x 17 inches, 2024.

The recent abstracts on display at OUAG are remarkably immersive and seductive. Go ahead — just try to resist their labyrinthine magnetism. In her catalog essay, critic Lynn Crawford describes the works as “unfamiliar, uncanny, yet bursting with life.” And indeed, it’s hard not to get sucked into their twisted contours, where something – digestion, perhaps? – is clearly going on. For her part, Crawford refers to “blended strands of lifeforms” that “radiate an energy and are possibly equipped to take on initiatives themselves.”

Yet there’s also a series of constructions that employ Phillips-head screws as their chief element and mostly rely on a muted palette that stands in sharp contrast to the boldly colored works that constitute the majority of the show. One can’t help but be struck by the exertion that went into these pieces, and they manifest an air of struggle and threat that sets them apart, echoing some of the ominousness in Chatelain’s early figurative work.

Even the title of one, Head on a Plate, implies danger. Standfest laughs when asked about these works. “There are an insane number of screws on them,” he says. “Talk about violence! Just imagine Jim screwing each one of those in, over and over.” He adds, “I’ve never asked him if he had a strategy, whether he marked off where they would go or just made it up as he went along.”

Jim Chatelain, Head on a Plate, Enamel paint, screws on plywood, 48 x 32 inches, 2001.

Jim Chatelain, Head on a Plate (detail), Enamel paint, screws on plywood, 48 x 32 inches, 2001. (Photo: Detroit Art Review)

Yet the title above also points to another key element of Chatelain’s oeuvre, a dark humor that ripples through many works. Standfest argues there’s “something of a violent physical comedy to Jim’s work that links to the [earlier] figures in some ways. He describes the figurative work as ‘situations,’ and there’s a tension in that.” Chatelain himself acknowledges a certain puckishness to much of what he’s produced. “In those early 70s figure paintings, there’s humor in those. They’re cartoonish in some ways,” he says. “It’s a little harder to do with the abstract work, but I think it can be done, [though] I can’t say that’s the case with all of it or most of it.” Chatelain sums it all up in a refreshing artistic philosophy: “It’s a failed painting that doesn’t have a little humor coming out of it.”

Jim Chatelain, The Caged Flea, Acrylic on canvas, 72 x 96 inches, 2015.

The gallery will host three talks open to the public before the show closes. On September 26, curator Ryan Standfest will lead a walkthrough of the show. On October 30, Dan Nadel, who’s curating an alternate history of American art in the 1960s for New York’s Whitney Museum, will speak. On November 6, Standfest will interview Chatelain. All gallery talks take place at noon.

Jim Chatelain: Correcting Past Mistakes will be up at the Oakland University Art Gallery in Rochester through November 24, 2024.

Daniel Cascardo & New Exhibitions @ BBAC

By Ron Scott

On August 25, 2024

In Drawing, Paintings, Sculpture

Daniel Cascardo, Installation image

The Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center gets a jump on the new fall season with three exhibitions opening in the last days of August that include Daniel Cascardo: Vision of Reality, An Artist’s Perspective in the Robinson Gallery, the Birmingham Society of Women Painters in the Kantgias-DeSalle Gallery, and work by Hannah Miller. The exhibitions opened on August 23 and extend through September 19, 2024. “It’s really a very inclusive show,” said Annie Van Gelderen, president and chief executive of the art center, noting the range of emerging and veteran artists in the exhibit.

Daniel Cascardo, Luminosity

In the work of Mr. Cascardo, the painting Luminosity reflects the most traditional abstraction with a large and diverse collection of colorful shapes and patterns that rely on his black line borders to hold the composition together. There is a calculation of placing swaths of color in positions across the rectangle from left to right and from top to bottom. If you wonder why this abstraction feels right, it is because of this calculated balance of line, color, and shapes that make their way equally into all parts of the composition.

He says, “The versatility of acrylic paint allows me to work quickly, capturing the energy of the moment through a freestyle technique. My inspiration comes from my imagination, spirituality, life experiences, creativity, music, and the arts. Through my work, I strive to communicate joy, happiness, and beauty, inspiring others to explore their creativity and engage in the artistic process.”

Daniel Cascardo, Rooster’s Melody

In the artwork, Rooster’s Melody, a similar technique of colorful patterns is encapsulated by a black border outline. Still, it supports a rooster motif near the center of the composition and is less abstract in its intent.

Daniel Cascardo, O Soi Mio

In the work Ol So Mio, the composition is more formal and illustrative in its intent. Balanced in shape and design, the composition is easier to understand, and the color is now heavier and darker in the lower half of the canvas, providing a top and bottom.

Daniel Cascardo, Harmonic Encounter

By using a variety of standard and recognizable shapes, figures, animals, instruments, and a landscape, Harmonic Encounter is a universe unto itself, even more illustrative in the artist’s attempt to create an overall happy place for us. Cascardo says, “My childhood experiences and cultural influences have significantly shaped my artistic vision, particularly my deep connection to my Italian American heritage. The food, travel, people, architecture, and fashion that have shaped my life inspire my artwork, allowing me to create unique and powerful imagery. Through my art, I hope to evoke emotions, inspire creativity, and engage in the world’s beauty.”

Dainiel Cascardo, Virtuoso

Daniel Cascardo attended College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI, Art Direction/Design, 1985

Henry Ford College, Dearborn, MI, Fine Art, 1983

Goldman Sachs 10k Business Alumni, 2018

Birmingham Society of Women Painters

Birmingham Society of Women Painters, Installation image

The Birmingham Society of Women Painters, founded in 1944, comprises residents from the surrounding metro Detroit area. With more than 50 members, they exhibit a diverse approach to painting, including watercolor, oil, acrylic, and mixed mediums. This exhibition, Brushstrokes, is in the Kantgias-DeSalle Gallery through October 8, 2024, and the juror is Meigan Jackson, a contemporary fine artist whose work is both a painter and paper artist, between the visual real and its abstracted essence.

Hannah Miller, Oddly Silent

Hannah Miller: Parallel Seekers Here, in her Hopper-esk painting, the artist reflects a socially conscious creator and innovator who uses art and design to make the world a more inclusive, kind, and welcoming place.

www.bbacartcenter.org

In the fourth gallery are works by BBAC students of Tim Widener.

Hours: Mon-Sat, 10a-4p

248.644.0866

Exhibitions supported by Bank of Ann Arbor / Birmingham

Group Exhibition @ Library Street Collective’s – The Shepherd

By Michael Hodges

On August 13, 2024

In Uncategorized

An installation view of In an effort to be held, curated by Allison Glenn, and on view at the Shepherd until October 12. Photo: Detroit Art Review

If you haven’t yet been to the Shepherd, the former church at the center of a new cultural complex on Detroit’s east side, you are missing out on one of the most stunning exhibition spaces in the metro area. Happily, In an effort to be held — the handsome second show at the brand-new gallery (it debuted May 18) — provides a compelling reason to push east of Indian Village to the three-acre site just a block off Jefferson. While a few elements have yet to be completed, notably the coffeeshop, the just-hatched Little Village, as the three block complex is called, boasts a bed-and-breakfast aimed at artists (but open to all), a library devoted to books on artists of color, a skateboard park designed by boarding-legend Tony Hawk, and a whimsical outdoor sculpture park with work by the late, great Charles McGee.

The whole complex is the brainchild of Anthony and JJ Curis. The couple, who own Library Street Collective, curated most of Bedrock’s multiple public art installations throughout downtown, including the “animated” alleyway The Belt, the towering Charles McGee black-and-white mural on the north end of Capitol Park, and the dazzling graffiti art on every level of the Z Garage. The interior of the 1912 Romanesque Revival church has been reimagined by Brooklyn’s Peterson Rich Office as a classic gallery “white box,” albeit one that celebrates, rather than fights, the architecture and the luminous stained glass.

The principal addition to the space is a freestanding mezzanine with a dramatic overlook on the now de-sanctified altar. At the center of this platform is a large oculus, maybe five feet across, that looks down on the gallery space immediately below.

Jordan Eagles, Vinci, Grayscale image of Salvator Mundi; Plexiglass, blood of an HIV+ undetectable long-term survivor and activist, and UV resin; 26 3/4 x 19 x 3 inches; 2018. (Subsequent images by Joseph Tiano, courtesy of Library Street Collective and the Shepherd.)

Curated by the Shepherd artistic director Allison Glenn (who grew up just east of her new workplace), In an effort to be held features one spellbinding piece that directly invokes the structure’s ecclesiastical past – Vinci by New York artist Jordan Eagles, who often, brace yourself, works in blood.

The artist generally sources his material from slaughterhouses, but in the case of Vinci, Eagles used the blood of a person with HIV who’s undetectable. The black-and-white photographic reproduction of the Renaissance portrait of Christ, Salvator Mundi (Savior of the World) – attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, though that’s also disputed, Glenn notes — is washed in a rich, even crimson that, softly illuminated from behind, fairly glows. Some may find the material and association disturbing – others, mesmerizingly beautiful. But there’s no question it’s hard to take your eyes off it.

Celeste, La constelación que viene, Pigments and acrylic base on dyed cotton canvas; Variable dimensions, approximately 29 feet x 16 feet; 2023.

At the far west end of the church, you’ll find the altar, stripped of religious objects, and overhead a delightful use of art in an architectural space. It’s an approach that Glenn particularly likes. “I love working with architecture,” she said. “A lot of my career has been working in public space – so when I saw the former church, I saw all the opportunities that existed outside the boxes.” In suspension above the altar, a bit like so many red-dyed clouds, La constelación que viene (The constellation that’s coming) represents the polar opposite mood from Vinci, powerful though that is. There’s a lightness and celebration attached to La constelación by the Mexican City duo Celeste (Fernanda Camarena and Gabriel Rosas Alemán), that uplifts and turns one’s gaze heavenward. It couldn’t fit the space Glenn chose any better if it tried.

Zak Ové, DP70, Vintage cotton doilies; 74 3/4 inches in diameter; 2023

Equally luminous in its way, though much more pointed in its use of color, is London artist Zak Ové’s DP70, a circular, multihued collage made entirely from vintage cotton doilies that, when seen from a distance, bear an uncanny resemblance to what you’d see looking through a rich kaleidoscope. The British-Trinadadian artist is best known for his loony-tunes, Crayola-colored sculptures, two of which were featured at the British Museum’s Africa Galleries last year. And while it’s mostly two-dimensional, DP70 does an astonishing imitation of a symmetrical, richly 3-D work of oddball power. “Hypnotic” is an understatement – yet at the same time, the whole conceit is drop-dead gorgeous. The artist uses a process he describes as “hyperbolic pattern-making,” invoking the masquerades of Canbulay, a Trinidadian harvest festival that came to represent emancipation in the former British colony of Trinidad and Tobago.

Cameron Harvey, Ancestor 26: Ceratonia Siliqua V; Acrylic, graphite, and reflective glass beads on canvas; 109 x 53 inches; 2023.

Another rich exercise in color is found in LA-based Cameron Harvey’s Ancestor 26: Ceratonia Siliqua V, a construction that looks rather like a ceremonial robe that ancient, far-away royalty might have sported. This is sensuous, high-concept work. Harvey rolls over unstretched, shaped canvas liberally strewn with paint that she impresses as she rotates. The deep-green, abstract horizontal image that repeats from bottom to top of the “garment’s” interior – which has a certain primitive mystique – was created by Harvey pressing her forearm repeatedly into the pigment. The artist has had solo shows in, among other cities, Venice, Rome, Chicago and Malibu. Harvey is currently doing a UCROSS residency in Sheridan, Wyoming. In an effort to be held is her first time exhibiting in Detroit.

Manal Shoukair, Seed of paradise, Nylon and pomegranates, Dimensions variable, 2024.

In another clever application of architecture to a work of art, Manal Shoukair – a Lebanese-American artist working in Detroit – suspended beige nylon from the Shepherd’s mezzanine oculus with a dozen or so pomegranates clearly visible at its center. Shoukair, a 2023 Kresge Foundation “Gilda Award” winner (named for the late Gilda Snowden, artist, and College for Creative Studies professor), grapples with Islamic spirituality and issues of “contemporary femininity,” according to her artist’s statement. The pomegranate is considered a sacred fruit in Islamic tradition, and here Shoukair has created – it might as well be said – an all-nourishing breast with pomegranates at its center. That Seed of paradise is visually lined up with the very spot where the cross used to stand on the skeletal altar just makes the composition all the richer.

Detroit Art Review

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