#DayDetroit

Betye Saar Beyond Midnight
What a gorgeous piece. I have never heard of Betye Saar but I am glad I did. Sorry we had to meet under such horrid circumstances. The Detroit Institute of Arts owns you, but your future life there is threatened due to financial issues. Detroit is dear to my little old heart. I lived there for a time when I was a young 5th grader. It was a great city, but it really got hit hard in recent times.
Posting this to help the cause. What are you doing? Do something.


the scoop from MAN is...
"In an effort to spotlight the collections at the Detroit Institute of Arts that would be lost if the threatened sale of art in collections at the DIA are sold, all day long Modern Art Notes and many other sites will be spotlight art at the DIA. I’ll be featuring roughly an artwork an hour for the next ten hours. I hope this will help  spotlight both the collection at the DIA and the access we have to Detroit’s art. I think that the more people think about what’s at the DIA, the more concerned they’ll be about what could happen there.

How can you help support the DIA? Share artwork here on MAN and at other sites with your friends. If you live in Michigan, tell your elected officials that the future of Detroit is important to you and that you don’t support a fire sale of the city’s future. Best of all: Join me in becoming a member of the Detroit Institute of Arts.

To read more about what we’re doing here, check out these stories in the Detroit Free Press and in the Detroit News.

Sites participating in today’s action include:

• Modern Art Notes
• MANPodcast.com
• Art F City
• Bad at Sports
• Artinfo’s In the Air
• Ed Winkleman
• Mary Louise Schumacher
• Greg Allen
• Two Coats of Paint
• The Art Blog
• Hyperallergic LABS
• Eyeteeth
• Art Practical
• Daily Serving
• Paper Monument
• Italy’s Secret Places
• ArtSmartTalk
• Chad Edward
• The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research
• WBUR’s The Artery
• Andrew Russeth
• Art Note

I hope other websites, critics, art museums and more will join us throughout the day in spotlight art at the DIA. (And please email me at tylergreendc -at- yahoo.com if you do!)

Participate on Twitter by sharing one of our posts or by tweeting your own favorite from the collections at the DIA by using the hashtag #DayDetroit!

I am Hyperallergic

I do a lot of reading about art online and one of my favorite places to catch up on the latest news is Hyperallergic.

They had an article series going on this month about the Selfie phenom and I really learned alot from this series, especially since I had no idea what a Selfie was. I already wrote in a previous post about how I am using the Selfie technique to begin my self portrait work so I decided to write in to Hyperallergic about what I am doing. Much to my surprise, I got some ink! Or computer type...depending on how you look at it!

The article is here...

“For me it started two years ago while I was preparing a wedding gift for my husband-to-be. I was dreaming of our honeymoon on the sea in Maine and everything was tainted with oceanography. I was making a collage series of very personal work for him and I ended up wanting to do a self-portrait — the most personal of all. I didn’t want him to know what I was up to, so a selfie was just the answer! I used my iPhone and took pix until I had some looks, some poses, some attitudes and I printed them out. Using a chosen print as the basis of my collage work, I wove seashells in my hair and even sewed real pearls onto the final piece. I was the Mother of Pearl. A 52-year-old getting married, not exactly white but pearlescent. Since that we have had two anniversaries and I have been able to do two more rounds of selfie portrait collages for him, and I love the freedom. I was hooked. I have decided to do a new series based on these selfie portraits.

“There’s a certain liberation of the art when you put yourself into it. I am free to take my ideas visions and thoughts and paste them as I need without restraint. (Is this what Matthew Barney explores? That restraint?) I always thought my art was autobiographical and I am always the subject even when I try not to be, and when a selfie is used the personal experience is heightened! I don’t care how zany the outcome … how freeing. I doubt anyone will buy these new pieces (with my mug in them!) but that in itself may be the liberation! Certainly it’s become a catalyst for creation.”