The Writing Process

It was a question that stopped me mid-sentence, knocked the writing wind out of me. “Would anyone want to read this?” My instinctive response to your question, Marin, was “Oh god, no! No one is going to want to read this crap.” Why would any sane, sensible person value my opinion on issues that real critics write about, for real. I had, up until this point, been quietly going along with my review writing with the naïveté of a junior sales associate in the women’s petite department at the J.C. Penney in Canton, Ohio. Seriously, though, it had not occurred to me that the point of this writing was not just to be informative but to be entertaining and engaging to an audience.

In my “Gran Torino” review, I filled the space of 500 words with information and some analysis and a definite opinion. While I think my review more or less met the technical requirements of the assignment, the language I employed was certainly too formal (and boring) to be of interest to an outside audience. Nothing about the language was conversational; it sounded more like a critical essay than a review. After reading published, professional reviews of the movie and the reviews some of my classmates had written, I realized how imperative a conversational style and a unique voice are in this genre of writing.

The review I wrote of the KIA exhibit “Spared From the Storm,” was the first time that I really saw my voice and personality come through. With only 500 words, I had to be concise but comprehensive too. I decided that the art itself would not be my focus; I mentioned some artists and made a general quality assessment of the objects but did not stay too long on the subject. I could have chosen to write a 50,000 word history of the artwork and not even come close to completion, and so I chose a more narrow scope. Focusing mostly on the layout of the exhibit, I was able to establish my authority and to offer a unique and critical review of the exhibit’s presentation. This was the first assignment for which I felt I had asserted myself as a legitimate review writer.

When it came time to decide on a topic for the final assignment, I knew that I wanted to write about art. I knew I didn’t want to write a straight art review and wasn’t set on writing a profile of a particular artist. My original plan to write about the future of young artists in an uncertain economy and an art world in decline kept getting too big even when I tried to really narrow the focus. It was also more challenging to keep the piece relevant to my audience of fellow classmates and to local people, and I wanted it to be regionally relevant.

I changed my topic to the failing state of the recently “revamped” Detroit Institute of Arts because I was interested in how the institution reflects the social, economic, and political climate of Detroit and its surrounding communities. I felt that in my analysis of the D.I.A.’s renovations I could be critical and informative and that in comparing the D.I.A. and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, I could touch on both negatives positives in discussing Detroit’s art culture which would make my piece more comprehensive and engaging. The initial feedback from my classmates was helpful in making me be more focused and relatable in my writing. Martin commented, “Be careful that this doesn’t become too much of an informational sort of news feature.” I definitely tried to keep this in mind while writing. For every informative statement I made, I tried to include a critical and opinionated argument. Getting feedback from my peers was, throughout the course, very helpful for me. It allowed me to better contextualize and focus my writing and to have an audience in mind while writing.

What I most got out of this course, was a new approach to writing that forced me to be bold, concise, informative, and entertaining and to do it in 500 words. I have a tendency in my writing to let quantity of words, replace quality of argument. I allow myself too much space to make an argument that can be stated and proved (and done so evocatively) in many fewer words. This course made me “get at” what I’m really writing about. My writing really needed this.

Hope for Detroit Art Just Down the Road from D.I.A.

The Detroit Institute of Arts is dying. Five years ago this observation would have seemed obvious and inevitable, a reflection of the city of Detroit itself. But it might come as a shock to many just 15 months after a 160 million dollar renovation project was completed at the venerable museum.

Under the leadership of director Graham W.J. Beal, the ambitious project (with an ambitious budget) sought to re-establish the D.I.A. as a cultural center for the city of Detroit and to create lasting relationships with the people of urban Detroit, not just the suburbanites who were the museum’s main patrons. While the re-opening attracted an initial excitement and a rush of visitors in the short-run, the surface changes at the D.I.A. appear to be wearing off as the old institutional bones reveal the museum as the same symbol of urban decay, racial inequality, and social ignorance.

The announcement late last month that it would lay off 1/5 of its employees (56 full- and 7 part-time), was just one in a series of such announcements recently. The museum has also canceled three upcoming exhibits that were to travel to Detroit from other venues. Instead of European Baroque masterworks, D.I.A. visitors will have to settle for a reshuffling of objects from the permanent collection. Not only will there be nothing new to see there will also be less to see and less time to see it. Along with staff reductions the D.I.A. will shorten its hours and close several of the newly added or renovated galleries. Keeping exhibits longer in the galleries that do stay open will also reduce costs.

The increase in visitors the museum saw after its November 2007 re-opening has declined sharply in recent months as the D.I.A. struggles to cover the remaining cost of the now complete renovations. The museum has currently raised only about 125 million of the full 180 million dollars the project cost. With continual cuts to the museum’s endowment and with nearly no support coming from the state of Michigan or the city of Detroit, the D.I.A. is forced to reduce its annual operating budget--which these cutbacks will do by about 6 million dollars.

Lay offs will occur in each of the museum’s departments with careful consideration to preserve the way visitors perceive and interact with the museum’s operation. Director Beal, on the subject said, “Our challenge is to maintain the incredible momentum from our grand opening and to meet the public’s expectation for an outstanding art museum experience.” Despite this budget tightening, the D.I.A. will need more than fiscal responsibility to save its face-lift from sagging back to an old countenance.

The highly celebrated changes to the look and feel of the D.IA. are beginning to reveal less of a permanent structural alteration and more of a simple surface shining. Re-envisioning the art historical approach to the display and presentation of art objects, the new D.I.A. was intended to truly be the democratizing institution that it once had been for the proletariat of an industrial and thriving Detroit. The new layout of galleries and the objects contained within them was meant to contextualize the artworks to make their meaning more accessible to more people.

The re-envisioning of one gallery was intended to connect black visitors to the presence of black American artists’ work in the D.I.A. collection. While meant to celebrate the artists and better facilitate the interaction between black visitors and black artists, the gallery is, by the physical fact of its walls, segregated. It is, in effect, a reflection of the world outside the D.I.A.: black artists huddled together, with Western (white) artists filling the surrounding galleries. If the D.I.A. wanted to celebrate and not segregate the black artists’ works it exhibits, it perhaps would have been better realized had the museum placed the artists alongside their contemporaries, weaving them into a historical narrative where they belong; uniting, not dividing.

In other ways the renovations have also fallen short in democratizing the museum. The new Farnsworth Street entrance (which like the interior alterations is the design of architect Michael Graves) is not, unlike the main Woodward Street entrance, a reflection of classical architectural models, meant to invoke the temple-like quality of the museum. For the sake of democratization of the museum and making everyone feel welcome to enter, the ambition of this design is commendable.

The execution of the design is, however, abominable and welcoming to no one. The cold, grey stone slabs that cover the facade are unfortunately complemented concrete and a high and single row of windows so narrow they are virtually invisible. All in all, the entrance works very well, for the Wayne County Jail. Arriving at the Farnsworth entrance, one has no idea that this is an art museum and certainly does not believe that any artistic treasures await inside. This architectural blunder serves as a visual reminder that what is inside the museum belongs to one world, and what is outside, to another.

With the “new” D.I.A. not living up to its grand expectations as a cultural center for the people who live closest to it, where then do the people of Detroit look for socially relevant and accessible art? Well, they don’t have to look far. Only four blocks down Woodward Avenue stands a small, but potentially huge beacon of new life and cultural vitality for urban Detroit. The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (better known as MOCAD) has, in the two years since its opening, lived up to its promise to “fuel crucial dialogue, collaboration, public engagement, and be responsive to the cultural content of our time.”

The museum is housed in the building of a former car dealership-- a clear symbol of urban decay and renewal. It is apparent even from the outside that the museum engages with its environment, the word “amaze” written in graffiti letters across the building side facing Woodward, stretch from the ground to the top of the one-story structure. Words are a big part of the work MOCAD features. One of the museum’s first exhibits, Words Fail Me, included an exterior light installation by the artist Martin Creed, whose prophetic statement read “Everything Is Going to Be Alright,” across the same outside wall.

It is this kind of interaction with community that distinguishes MOCAD from its big brother down the street. As a non-collecting institution, MOCAD’s temporary exhibits always offer something new, and something pertinent to show and to be seen. But it is not just looking that the museum facilitates and wants. MOCAD provides a regular schedule of concerts, discussions, readings, film showings, and performances that are meant to bring people in and send them back out into the community with a new awareness. It is also the goal of these events to create and build a social network of informed and motivated individuals who can work together for social progress and betterment.

Just this month, MOCAD has on its schedule a film showing and discussion about a 1968 Dodge auto plant strike; a Sunday Family Day centered on the current Black Is, Black Ain’t exhibit; a panel discussion on the use of black images and black words in the media; a reading by two poets, Barry Schwabsky and Tyrone Williams; and a concert featuring young up-and-coming Detroit musicians. The nature of all these programs encourages social dialogue and the discussion relevant race, class, and generational issues. Perhaps what is most significant about these programs is there variety; MOCAD facilitates interaction and dialogue but allows the community to guide their direction.

Where the D.I.A. has spent millions of dollars it doesn’t have to remodel itself as a reflection of the city in which it stands, in large part, it is still a reminder of division and decay. The museum has rearranged the furniture when it needed to change the institutional framework. The pulse of the Detroit Institute of Arts may be fading but just down the road a little but young and gutsy museum beats in the heart of the city.

Fabulous, Even in French

Parlez vous francais? No? A play in French can still be great even if you don’t understand all the words. This was the case Tuesday night for senior Coco Corbitt’s one-woman play performed in the Dungeon Theater. “Stabat Mater Furiosa,” written by Jean-Pierre Siméon is an aggressive and emotional monologue (or conversation) condemning war violence, translating to “Immovable Furious Mother.” Corbitt employed physical language varying vocal intonations to clearly deliver this woman’s message to her audience.

A large, antique rifle propped on two chairs was the only prop present throughout the play. It was also, save three estranged dorm room lamps, the entirety of the set decoration. This minimal approach to staging focused the attention on the dialogue between woman and object, as well as being cost-effective. Without a lot of visual elements to guide the viewing, how does an audience of mostly-non speakers understand and connect to a play solely in French?

Corbitt’s performance seduced and capsulated the audience by revealing the force found behind the words, not just in them. Moving from whispers to shouts to near tears the momentum of the lines propelled the play through it’s 45 minute duration. The varying pace also provided a rhythm and some natural pauses throughout the one-act. The delivery of the lines was reflective of a angered woman speaking her mind and addressing both her transgressions and fears. The moments where little flubs in the words could have been obvious equivocations, Corbitt made the stumble work, like a natural trip in an angry confession.

Confronting the weapon with words and gestures denoting the range of emotions war arouses in those that it affects, Corbitt showed how easy it can be to respond to violence with violence. The control the performer demonstrated with her gestures matched the vocal intonations that conveyed meaning as well or better than words. Moving her body around the stage and in thoughtful relation to the symbolic weapon, Corbitt found an interactive physical presence hard to imagine in a one-person play. Whether lying down and gazing up leisurely or thrashing the air in faux assault, the delivering of lines was married to a prominent physicality.

The play was evidence that passionate feeling can be transmitted without the translation of words. Evidence of a feminist critique, as well as a mother’s singular anger, emerged from the subplot of the play and were charged in Corbitt’s performance. On themes upon which all are familiar, the play and the individual interpretation and performance related the same power and emotion whether you understood the French or just the fierce energy.

Critical Essay Response

In his NYT article from February 15, Holland Cotter examines how the art world faces a time of recession and consolidation that mirrors the nations economic situation. Cotter looks at what artists will need to do in this time to make art that is relevant to the times and critical in its meaning. The article looks at similar situations past when economic situations necessitated artists to reconsider the process and intent of their art making. Cotter tells us flat out that the time for cozy and comfortable art is not now, artists, critics, and historians must all push for art forms that are more than pleasing objects for material consumption. This time of fallow in the art market is the perfect time for new and innovative art to emerge, for artists to work collaboratively, to not allow art to become static and devoid of political and social intent. To Cotter, now is the time for revision and re-vision in all the of the institutions--galleries, studios, museums, schools--that make up the art world; moving forward with new ideas and forms while taking from the impetus of past eras.

The Future of Young Artists (this is all I have for now)

The heroic image of the young, struggling artist is an image, by now, established as cliché. Struggle is, however, exactly what most young artists leaving liberal arts undergraduate institutions and entering the art world can expect to do in this economy. Not just struggle in terms of being able to produce, exhibit, and sell their work; the young crop of artists will have to struggle to find common identity and purpose as a generation whose initiation into the art world matrix comes at a time when art itself struggles to maintain its pertinence in an economy where necessities eliminate luxuries.

The American and international art produced in recent years has been, by and large, a reflection of the times. With a surplus economy there is room for a surplus of individual artists and a surplus of aesthetic objects. The resurgence of painting in innumerable gallery shows of the last decade is evidence that the art market has enjoyed a period of comfort, ease, and predictability. While there is a plethora of artists whose sculpted or constructed objects or mixed-media installations are visually innovative, like painting, these works all fit nicely into the little white box of the gallery space.

As NYT art critic Holland Cotter has noted, the pages that made art periodicals as heavy as an Oxford dictionary in recent years have vanished, leaving the magazines as thick an issue of Tiger Beat. What is missing as of late? It is all of those gallery shows that now cannot afford the advertizing or don’t exist at all.