Main Gallery
I, too, am, Detroit
Inspired by Langston Hughes poem I, too, am, America the exhibition seeks to spotlight t the artistic sector in Detroit and its influence building the creative ecosystem throughout the world. I, too, am, Detroit is an exhibition that focuses on diversity and inclusion within the culture of Detroit and beyond. It encapsulates the history of freedom and democracy.

Rose Gallery:
Minutes, by Gregory Coates
Coates is creative with his usage of found materials. Artistically, he enjoyed painting abstract female figures with mixed media, but left behind the tradition of using a brush when Al Loving, his mentor, pointed at a boisterous collage made with wood, metal and cardboard and said in his matter of fact way, “that’s your art, there!”
By year 2000, Coates was awarded Joan Mitchell, Pollock Krasner, and Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Fellowship Grants in addition to the New York State Foundation Grant.
His work is shown internationally, most recently at Galerie Denkraum in Vienna, where his show “Strut” got raving reviews in a full-page color spread in the Wiener Zeitung paper

Black Box Exhibition:
Hampton Art Lovers Presents: Ebony Broadsides, Celebration of the Masters
Hampton Art Lovers Presents: “Ebony Broadsides, Celebration of the Masters”, a fine art poster exhibition featuring original signed exhibition posters of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jacob Lawrence, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, John Biggers, Lois Malou Jones, Gordon Parks, Roy DeCarava and Oliver Johnson and Ed Clark. The show also includes original signed poster art of Elizabeth Catlett, Romare Bearden, Samella Lewis, Barkley Hendricks, James Denmark and Basil Watson. With special artist proofs and studies by Ernie Barnes and A.C. Hollingsworth. Sponsored by the Southeast Overtown/Park West CRA, Work of Art Gallery & Framing and All Art Framing at the Historic Ward Rooming House. All artwork is courtesy of The Norwood Collection.

MURRAY EL’ZABAR
Grammy Award winning saxophonist, David Murray and iconic drummer – percussionist, Kahil El’Zabar come together in a very dynamic jazz duo. This concert showcases both contemporary modern music masters creative exploration and compositional diversity.

Doors open at 7:00, where audience goers will be able to mix & mingle while listening to the sounds of DJ Drummer B. At 8:00 p.m. the performance of jazz masters’ David Murray and Kahil El’Zabar will begin. During a magical and innovative evening, David Murray and Kahil El’Zabar will share with over 75 attendee’s views of how jazz and improvisation has come together in the 21st century, and how both jazz masters brought a voice to the music industry harmonizing and igniting the love affair between creativity and inspiration!

SATURDAY, JUNE 22, 2019
Doors at 7:00 p.m.  / Performance at 8pm
Tickets: $25 in Advance / $35 at the door
Tickets available over the phone at 313-831-8700, or in person at the N’Namdi Center (52 E. Forest Ave. Detroit, MI 48201, Tuesday – Saturday 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.).

This concert features pieces by several emerging composers whose diverse music lure the listener into new impressions which are representative of the current state of the avant-garde classical music stage. All of the pieces were written in 2018, with seven of them set to receive their world premieres at this concert.

Performer Huizi Zhang Bio: https://www.huizizhang.com/bio/

Program:
Fabian Beltran: 3 Etudes
Winfield B. Carson: Death and Resurrection
Jun An Chew: Hyetal Days
Gu Wei: Passage 2&3
Nina Shekhar: Postcards (NYC Premiere)
Sarah Elise Thompson: Pink Salt

MURRAY EL’ZABAR
The N’Namdi Center is pleased to welcome back two legendary modern jazz musicians –
saxophonist David Murray and drummer – percussionist Kahil El’Zabar who come together in a very dynamic jazz duo. This concert showcases both contemporary modern music masters creative exploration and compositional diversity.

SATURDAY, JUNE 9, 2018
Doors at 7pm  / Performance at 8pm
Tickets: $25 in Advance / $35 at the door
Tickets available at www.murrayelzabarduo.eventbrite.com, over the phone at 313-831-8700,
or in person at the N’Namdi Center.

Of the Land

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ – Rudyard Kipling

Neha Vedpathak’s exhibition Of the Land, is a second installment in a series of on-going work about the city of Detroit. In this chapter Vedpathak dives deeper into the city both literally and metaphorically. Vedpathak pays attention, studies the spatial and social landscape. She grapples with city’s dichotomy as she confronts the ‘revitalized’ and the ‘forgotten’ parts of the city, both of which are real and personal to Vedpathak.

In 2017, Vedpathak began researching Detroit’s Demolition Program and learned that since 2014, the city has taken down more than 13000 vacant residential and commercial buildings in neighborhoods across the city with thousands more in the demolition pipeline. ‘Though this may be a necessary step towards the future progress of the city’ states Vedpathak, ‘my contention as an artist is that these structures were once homes to people and families, a place where memories and lives were made. And as such these vanishing structures, even in their dire state deserve to be documented before they are completely wiped out from the landscape and collective consciousness of the city’, Vedpathak continues, ‘with this in mind I began photographing buildings that were scheduled for demolition’. This direct interaction with the constructions and sites from across the city, gave Vedpathak an understanding of the form and physicality of these structures as well as an invaluable insight into the psyche of the city at this crucial point in its narrative. Vedpathak came across innumerable buildings that suggest passage of time via their peeling paint, weathered exterior and over-grown vines. These exposed layers of paint lend the neighborhoods its unique color palette — where the past, present and future collide in pigments. For Vedpathak, these soon to be forgotten buildings and structures tell a tale of its occupants, gives an impression of their life and challenges, together it creates an image that is fragmented, overwhelming and poignant.

For this body of work, Vedpathak’s interactions with architecture, serves as a tool for documentation and creates an access point for the artist to absorb the formidable urban landscape, to acknowledge its challenges, disparity and the spirit of its people of whom great deal is asked. The above excerpt from Rudyard Kipling’s poem If, summarizes Vedpathak’s emotional rationale and posture.

In 2009, Vedpathak developed her signature plucking technique, where she separates the fibers of the Japanese hand-made paper using a tiny pushpin. The resultant paper resembles a lace fabric, which the artist then uses to make individual works. Plucking is a slow, long, repetitive and sedulous process that yields plucked paper that’s delicate, yet strong. For Vedpathak labor that goes into making art is a form of meditation.

Of the Land will showcase twelve medium to large scale plucked works. These works invites the viewer to reflect on his/her own stance in this moment of transition.

Neha Vedpathak was born in India and received her five years graduate diploma in Painting from Abhinav Kala Maha Vidhyalaya located in Pune, India. Vedpathak is a multidisciplinary artist renowned for her inventive and original process-based practice. Vedpathak is a keen observer of her surroundings and has a deep connection to her materials. She has had featured exhibitions in the Czech Republic, India, Canada, France, Greece and the United States. Vedpathak has been an invited resident artist at Skopelos Foundation for the Arts (Greece), Bharat Bhavan Graphic Studio (India), Spiro Arts (Utah), Anderson Ranch Art Center (Colorado), and CAMAC (France) and Fountainhead Residency (Florida). Vedpathak currently lives and maintains a studio in Detroit, Michigan.

The exhibition will be on display at the N’Namdi Center from April 14, 2018 through June 9, 2018.

Neha Vedpathak was born in India and received her five years graduate diploma in Painting from Abhinav Kala Maha Vidhyalaya located in Pune, India. Vedpathak is a multidisciplinary artist renowned for her inventive and original process-based practice. Vedpathak is a keen observer of her surroundings and has a deep connection to her materials. She has had featured exhibitions in the Czech Republic, India, Canada, France, Greece and the United States. Vedpathak has been an invited resident artist at Skopelos Foundation for the Arts (Greece), Bharat Bhavan Graphic Studio (India), Spiro Arts (Utah), Anderson Ranch Art Center (Colorado), and CAMAC (France) and Fountainhead Residency (Florida). Vedpathak currently lives and maintains a studio in Detroit, Michigan.

The exhibition will be on display at the N’Namdi Center from April 14, 2018 through June 9, 2018.
An artist talk will take place at the N’Namdi Center on Saturday, May 5th at 2:00pm.

Also opening April 13, 2018: Heloisa Pomfret “Threshold”

Exhibition Statement
“The philosophy of my work is about the energy, order and chaos that occurs during psychological or physical stress, which serve as theoretical support to the mark-making and constructs of my images. The surface is often an analogy to the body and memory, in which experience occurs and is transformed. The visual elements of the brain, along with its scientific charting and diagrams, serve as inspiration and a starting point of abstraction for paintings/drawings and installations, in both traditional and non-traditional materials.

My paintings on canvas and on paper involve the palimpsest process, where layers of paint are scratched to reveal further paint beneath. The canvas is cut and re-stitched, creating an abstract work on the margins of painting/drawing and sculpture. The use of stitches and sutures suggests mending, healing and the installation of cut-outs suggests elements of the brain that regulate human emotion. These processes are analogies to the searching of memory, mapping and charting.

As part of the exploration of the ideas around the emotional impulses of fright and flight, passion and aggression, this exhibition considers the limits where a transformation or change occurs—or the concept of “threshold”. Threshold is the limit or point at which something begins to shift or the point where saturation is reached.

A threshold could be a point where an image or subject can be transformed by manipulation of color and texture, and therefore a change in its visual identity is reached. The threshold can also involve imposing or testing physical, chemical, architectural or psychological limits.

Within this Exhibit, a threshold involves the consideration of scientific images developed in the search for truth. This includes images of components of the brain, grids and graphs used to chart impulses, brain waves and similar activity. These charts, scans and scientific representations of the brain are re-contextualized, through color and texture, and translated into different medium and materials.

This threshold—between poetic abstraction and scientific representation—is summarized in the following quote:

‘A poem is that species of composition which is opposed to works of science, by proposing for its immediate object pleasure, not truth….’ — Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, 1817

The intention of this Exhibition, is to explore this transformation—this Threshold—first, from the idea of an impulse to scientific representation and measurement, and second, from scientific representation back to abstracted mark-making, color, texture and re-purposed and re-constructed materials.”

– Heloisa Pomfret

“Threshold”, features paintings on canvas and installations by Brazilian American visual artist Heloisa Pomfret. The exhibition includes “Maps”, an installation of over 250 images cut from truck tire inner tubes. Also presented will be works of oil on canvas from the Threshold series, where the canvasses are often cut and re-stitched, and the paint scratched with metal blades.

Heloisa was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and earned a Master of Arts and Master of Fine Arts in painting and drawing at Wayne State University in Detroit. She has exhibited her inter-disciplinary work at various museums and international exhibitions, including in Sao Paulo Brazil. –

The exhibition will be on display at the N’Namdi Center from April 14, 2018 through June 9, 2018.

“Threshold”, features paintings on canvas and installations by Brazilian American visual artist Heloisa Pomfret. The exhibition includes “Maps”, an installation of over 250 images cut from truck tire inner tubes. Also presented will be works of oil on canvas from the Threshold series, where the canvasses are often cut and re-stitched, and the paint scratched with metal blades.

Heloisa was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and earned a Master of Arts and Master of Fine Arts in painting and drawing at Wayne State University in Detroit. She has exhibited her inter-disciplinary work at various museums and international exhibitions, including in Sao Paulo Brazil. –

The exhibition will be on display at the N’Namdi Center from April 14, 2018 through June 9, 2018.
An artist talk will take place at the N’Namdi Center on Saturday, April 28 at 2:00pm.

Also opening April 13, 2018: Neha Vedpathak “Of the Land”

In case you missed it, watch the lecture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC7GgGr90TM&t=61s

Join us for a lecture on Romare Bearden by art historian, cultural producer, and writer Kilolo Luckett, Saturday March 17th at 2:00pm.

The Romare Bearden exhibition at the N’Namdi Center is on display through March 31, 2018.

Kilolo Luckett is an art historian, cultural producer, and writer. With over twenty years
of experience in the arts, culture and community and economic development fields, she is
committed to making art and culture more accessible. Kilolo has worked with national
and international artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Larry Bell, Mischa Kuball, Tim
Rollins + K.O.S., Peter Sarkisian, Vanessa German, Tina Brewer, Lenka Clayton, and
Thaddeus Mosley. She is a contributing writer to the exhibition book Halston & Warhol:
Silver & Suede. Kilolo is writing an authorized biography on Naomi Sims, who grew up
in Pittsburgh and became one of the first black supermodels. She created By Any Means,
a contemporary arts series that engages directly with leading artists, curators, writers, and
cultural consumers to broaden the scope and understanding of contemporary art
influenced by black culture. Kilolo is acting curator for Visual Arts at the August Wilson
Center – African American Cultural Center.

Kilolo was a cultural consultant for Atelier Ace, and worked as the cultural attaché for
Ace Hotel Pittsburgh. Kilolo served as managing director of the Homewood Artist
Residence (HAR), an initiative that advanced art as a social practice centered on the
experiences of the African Diaspora. HAR is the recipient of the 2015 Mayor’s Award
for Public Art. She was director of development for The Andy Warhol Museum. Kilolo
was the curatorial assistant at Wood Street Galleries, business development coordinator
for Urban Design Associates, and Marketing and PR director at Pittsburgh Filmmakers.
Kilolo was an honoree of the 50 Women of Excellence by the New Pittsburgh Courier.
She is the recipient of the Women in the Material World Award, an honor given by the
Women and Girls Foundation for her contributions in economic development and the
arts. She is a board member of the Braddock Carnegie Library and advisory board
member of the Homewood – Brushton YMCA. She serves on the City of Pittsburgh’s
Art Commission.

Formal opening reception for the exhibition “Romare Bearden”, on display at the N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art January 20 – March 31, 2018.

Monique McRipley Ollie and Ronald Maurice Ollie Photography by Adger Cowans © Adger Cowans – care of Saint Louis Art Museum

Saint Louis Art Museum received a major gift from New Jersey-based collector Ronald Maurice Ollie and his wife Monique McRipley Ollie earlier this December: the Thelma and Bert Ollie Memorial Art Collection. The gift includes 81 works by contemporary black artists and adds significant depth and breadth to the museum’s holdings of works by African-American artists.

Join us Saturday, Dec. 30 at 2:00pm at the Center for a live interview with Mr. Ollie discussing the gift, and the process that lead up to it.

From the Saint Louis Art Museum:
Ronald Ollie grew up in St. Louis. His parents, Thelma and Bert Ollie, were frequent visitors to the museum and instilled in him and his siblings a deep appreciation of art. Ronald Ollie’s childhood fascination with abstract art grew into a passion when, as an adult, he began to acquire abstract works by artists he admired and, often, befriended.

“My wife and I share the Saint Louis Art Museum’s commitment of advancing knowledge while introducing art to people of all ages and backgrounds,” said Ronald Ollie, who is retired after a 30-year career in business development that included leadership positions at major Fortune 500 firms and top architecture and engineering firms across the country. “The museum’s collection helped ignite my passion—we are delighted to know works we have stewarded might do the same for future generations.”

The gift of 81 paintings, drawings, prints, photographs and sculpture includes significant works by such American artists as Terry Adkins, Benny Andrews, Robert Blackburn, Chakaia Booker, Ed Clark, Nanette Carter, Adger Cowans, Herb Gentry, Sam Gilliam, Bill Hutson, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, James Little, Al Loving, Jack Whitten, Stanley Whitney, Frank Wimberley, and William T. Williams. Works by British artists Winston Branch and Frank Bowling also are included in the gift.

“This transformative gift is a testament to years of passionate collecting that is both focused and far reaching,” said Brent R. Benjamin, the Barbara B. Taylor Director of the Saint Louis Art Museum. “I am deeply grateful to Ronald and Monique Ollie, whose generosity will help our visitors enjoy a richer and more diverse understanding of postwar American art.”

Among the highlights of the collection are important groupings of work by Clark and Loving showcasing these artists’ fascination with formal experiment; Whitney’s richly colorful “Out into the Open,” in which the artist invigorates a long modernist tradition of the grid in abstract painting; and Gilliam’s radical draped painting, “Half Circle Red,” where the canvas stretcher has been removed.

Works on paper number among the great strengths in the collection. Blackburn’s iconic lithograph “Faux Pas” places him squarely at the origin of post-war printmaking in America. Numerous drawings and collages represent multiple generations of artists ranging from Lewis and Gentry, whose careers began in the mid-20th century; to Gilliam and Clark, who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s; to Whitney and Little, who are at the heights of their careers.

The Ollies strongly believe in the power of museums to educate. To that end, the couple also has given an extensive collection of related resources—including a library of relevant books and an archive of ephemera and other research materials—that will support the study of the collection and provide a basis for future scholarship.

Ron Ollie graduated from the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy—now known as Missouri University of Science and Technology—with a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering. Ron Ollie is a member of the Newark Museum’s board of trustees. In addition to collecting art, he also is an avid book collector whose library includes over 2,100 titles on black history and culture as well as volumes of Negro Spiritual sheet music.

Monique McRipley Ollie works in the life sciences and pharmaceutical industries. She received a bachelor of science degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree and a doctorate in biomedical engineering from Northwestern University.  She serves on the board of the Newark School of the Arts.

An exhibition of selections from the collection and an accompanying publication will be organized in 2019; visitors may access the educational resources in the Richardson Memorial Library beginning next year.

“Abstraction is as indigenous to African visual culture as it is to other parts of the world. The exploration of purely formal elements is not only readily evidenced in the rich traditions of textile designs and other decorative practices from the continent, but is also present in the stylizations of much figurative work from Africa. The six artists in this exhibition, all born and, or raised in countries in Africa, produce work thematically or conceptually connected to the continent by pursuing the use of abstraction as a way of engaging in a broader conversation about art. In our increasingly global existence of the 21st century the world is becoming less and less exotic, and is being experienced more as a sphere of commonalities of being, dreams, fears and aspirations.

Cultural ideas once thought as discrete are now being understood as archetypical, having resonances across the wider world. Aesthetic engagement with form is as important a part of the content of these artists’ works as is their symbolic, historical, socio-political, or conceptual significance.

Among the many questions raised by this exhibition, the overarching one must be the dialectical question:

what is contemporary African art?

Abstract Minded: Works by Six Contemporary African Artists is not simply about looking for the African in African art, it is also about taking a look at what some African artists are doing today in order to get a fuller sense of the current ‘state of things’ in contemporary African art.”  –

Round in Circles
Closing Reception with Performances and Video Screenings
with Mary Anderson, The ManosBuckius Cooperative, Augusta Morrison, Ryan Standfest, and Todd Stovall.

SATURDAY  AUGUST 26, 2017  |  3 – 6PM
RSVP on Facebook

Join us for an afternoon of performance and video that explores the formal and metaphorical implications of the circular; employs some form or manifestation of a circle, loop, spiral, cycle, spin, circuit or hole; or reflects on a broader, collective feeling of the times, that of moving without getting anywhere, ending at the beginning, of literally going round and “round in circles”.

August 26, 3:00 – 6:00PM
Program begins at 3:15PM
Reception to follow, around 5:00PM

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

MARY ANDERSON writes about performance and place and teaches at Wayne State University.

SARAH BUCKIUS AND MELANIE MANOS: THE MANOSBUCKIUS COOPERATIVE (THE MBC) has produced ten videos which have toured the globe in video, new media and electronic art festivals, most recently in Kalamata, Greece and Marseille, France. The MBC has created two site-specific live-to-feed performance interventions (Ohio State University; Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit), two live performances (Performance Studies International, New York University; ArtPrize, Grand Rapids), two solo shows (InSpace Gallery, Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids; The MBC, The Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center, MI) and participated in the group exhibition Primary, at Kendall College of Art & Design. Now separated by distance, Manos and Buckius are addressing absurdities involving video calling technology, travel, and familial responsibilities.

AUGUSTA MORRISON is a musician and arts educator based in Detroit. She attended Michigan State and studied Arts and Humanities and Art Education. As the Education Associate at MOCAD she assists the Education and Public Program departments with events, tours, workshops and youth and adult orientated programs. In her spare time, she organizes music and social justice programs with Seraphine Collective, plays in Double Winter, a psychedelic rock band and has an experimental performance project called Bigabite.

RYAN STANDFEST is a Detroit artist. He is the editor and publisher of ROTLAND PRESS, presenting satirical publications of a culturally relevant nature, and founded the performance group Cabaret BLACK EYE, a hybrid of vaudeville and Absurdist theatrical tendencies. He is also a curator, assembling exhibitions that focus on different forms of humor in the visual arts. Standfest holds an MFA in Printmaking from The University of Iowa.

TODD STOVALL (b. 1980 in Detroit, lives and works in Detroit) has been, since century’s shift, involved with and working at the edges of avant movements across the city. The artist’s practice has spanned the Detroit electronic techno/house/underground hip-hop, music scenes, as well as public sculpture, and public performance. He is interested in the ambient poetics of line and form; in the space between silence, text, and soul.

“Round in Circles” Exhibition Event

Readings by: Lynn Crawford, Katie Grace McGowan and Chace “Mic Write” Morris
With MC: Ryan Harte

3 Detroit-based writers will be reading work that explores the formal and metaphorical implications of the circular; employs some form or manifestation of a circle, loop, spiral, cycle, spin, circuit or hole; or reflects on a broader, collective feeling of the times, that of moving without getting anywhere, ending at the beginning, of literally going round and “round in circle”s. Ryan Harte is the MC for this event. Presented during Art Detroit Now’s Second Saturday.

LYNN CRAWFORD is a novelist and arts writer living and working north of Detroit. She is a 2010 Kresge Literary Fellow and a 2016 Rauschenberg Writing Fellow. Her books include “Fortification Resort” (a selection of art related sestinas) and the novels “Simply Separate People” and “Simply Separate People, Two” and, most recently, “Shankus & Kitto: A Saga.” Her newest novel, “Paula, So Far” will be published by DittoDitto fall, 2017.

KATIE GRACE MCGOWAN’s work explores empathy and affect. She engages in genre-bending performance, writing creative nonfiction, and working as an amateur private eye. Her practice is rooted in participatory observation, or what McGowan calls invisible theater, through which she explores ideology. By conducting invisible theater experiments—whether posing as the next cosmetic surgery victim or a hapless traveler looking for God —she is given entrée into cultures far removed from her own.

McGowan holds an M.F.A. from The University of Iowa in Intermedia as well as M.A. and B.A. degrees from Wayne State University, in English. Recent exhibitions and performances include Art as Research, at George Mason University (Fairfax, VA), CARPA, at The Museum of Contemporary Craft (Portland, OR), and “Performance Capitalism and Its Discontents” at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities (Ann Arbor, MI). She currently works as Associate Director of Programs at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the oldest avant-garde and experimental film festival in North America. She is based in Detroit.

MIC WRITE is as much poet as he is emcee, threading the two worlds he’s thrived in to write socially-immediate music that builds strength without weighing heavy. He is mastering his particular alchemy of blending smart, layered, urgent rhymes with pulsing beats & creating bangers that make you bounce on the 1st play, think on the 2nd, and activate on the 3rd.

He is prepping to release an audio/visual project entitled “The ONUS Chain”- a trilogy of visuals & accompanying EP that navigate police brutality, the traumatic fatigue of waiting for change & what independence from the oppression potentially looks like.

Mic has witnessed his gentrification dissect his city & violence against blacks haunt his body; in response he is exploring what it means to be as dangerous as being black/from Detroit would suggest. Can it be used as a response to fight back? Passion has always been integral to his work, but its becoming more pointed & honed- trading the soapbox for the front porch.

“Emcee, poet, educator, and Detroit visionary, Chace ‘Mic Write’ Morris is unstoppable. Mic Write’s reputation as a renaissance man pales in comparison to the weight of his message and unconstrained fervor” – Jerrilyn Jordan, Audiofemme

RYAN HARTE is a Detroit native. He obtained his B.A. in Economics-Philosophy from Columbia University in New York and the Diplôme du Programme International at Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po) in Paris. He contributed to and served as associate editor of “Infinite Mile”, an online Detroit-based art journal. Areas of interest include what makes the art and the story of Detroit unique; gentrification and its impacts; the roles of cities in new idea generation and creative exchange; and the interplay of art and fashion.

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The summer group exhibition “Round in Circles” explores formal and metaphorical implications of the circular. Probing the banal to the absurd to the disheartened, each work included in the exhibition employs some form or manifestation of a circle, loop, spiral, cycle, spin, circuit or hole. The exhibition reflects on a broader, collective feeling of the times, that of moving without getting anywhere, ending at the beginning, of literally going round and “round in circles”.

On the one hand, the circular can be read as a transcription of our current malaise that seemingly permeates each earthly rotation or more presciently every news cycle; of frustration and unease, of escape into fabricated nostalgias and worn repetitions, where the new is just yesterday’s old. On the other, the form provides the potential for respite, a do over if you will; as we return to where we began, we are afforded another opportunity, a chance for a new beginning. Perhaps this time we will get it right. And yet within the circular is the promise of stasis, that balance state where entropy becomes tamed into pattern and harmony, where new days are around every horizon, where the cycle of motion intermingle with time and space and the ouroboros makes peace within itself. Yes, going round in circles is dizzying, at once nauseating and exciting, impoverished and plentiful, the form that implies nothing also embraces the possibilities of being everything.

Artists: ‘jide Aje, Danielle Aubert, Corrie Baldauf, Davin Brainard, Tyanna J. Buie, Alexander Buzzalini, Shane Darwent, Clara DeGalan, Simone DeSousa, Erin Imena Falker, Jessica Frelinghuysen, Ani Garabedian, Richard Haley, Asia Hamilton, Megan Heeres, Eli Kabir, Osman Khan, Austin Kinstler, Nicola Kuperus, Timothy van Laar, Anthony Marcellini, Adam Lee Miller, Shanna Merola, Eleanor Oakes, Ato Ribeiro, Robert Platt, Marianetta Porter, Dylan Spaysky, Todd Stovall, Gregory Tom, Graem Whyte, Elizabeth Youngblood, Alivia Zivich

Curated by Jennifer Junkermeier

On display at the N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art through August 26, 2017

Artist John Sims will be bringing his annual Memorial Day performance to Detroit in the form of a mock funeral and memorial for the Confederate Flag, featuring prominent area ministers, poets and activists: Jennifer Harge, Kim Hunter, Monica Lewis-Patrick, M.L. Liebler, Jessica Care Moore, Rev. Jeff Nelson, and Rev. Charles E. Williams II. This multi-media performance will include eulogies, remembrances and a performative cremation and will conclude with a repass. The event is held this year with the 50th year anniversary of the 1967 Riots/Rebellion in mind.

Sims, a native Detroiter, is currently completing the Recoloration Proclamation, a 16-year multi-media project which explores the complexity of identity, cultural appropriation and visual terrorism in the context of Confederate iconography and African-American culture. This system of works features recolored Confederate flags, installations, public performances, a play, a documentary film and a music project. In the past, he has exhibited a red, black and green Confederate battle flag in SoHo, and brought that same flag to an anti-KKK rally in Florida. He also hanged the Confederate flag in a noose in Gettysburg, organized Confederate flag burning installation at State Capitol in Columbia SC, and most recently, mock married a Confederate with a Union solider on the steps of City Hall in San Francisco.

Recently he presented a Woodward Lecture at College for Creative Studies and last year brought his AfroDixie Remixes to the DIA for Concert of Colors Concerts and at University of Michigan Dearborn Campus’ commemoration of 1967 50^th Anniversary commemoration

In 2015 in honor of the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War, Sims organized a 13-state funeral for the Confederate flag on March 25, 2015—three weeks before the Emanuel A.M.E. Church shootings in Charleston, South Carolina.

The Charleston murders led to his call to burn and bury the Confederate flag in all 50 states on the following 4th of July. Both of these actions were successful, with widespread participation and media coverage across the country. This lead to the creation of the annual Burn and Bury Confederate Flag Memorial and the website www.burnandbury.org

The goal of this annual action is to send a powerful message to the nation, especially under the Trump presidency and alt right politics that the Civil War is over, and the days of the Confederate Flag and white supremacy are numbered. It is also a way to honor the memory of social justice soldiers who fought against slavery and for Civil Rights and everywhere in between, and those who continue to fight against contemporary institutional and cultural white supremacy. Sims wants to send the message that it is time for the Confederate flag to act as a symbol for cathartic action, giving birth to a new ritual for all Americans to engage a moment and space of healing and transformation.

The Burn and Bury Memorial: Detroit 2017, ground zero for the national event will be hosted by the N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art as a mock funeral memorial featuring prominent area ministers, poets and activists. This multi-media event will include eulogies, remembrances and a performative cremation and will conclude with a repass.

To download the Burn and Bury multi-media kit and see the event streamed live please visit www.burnandbury.org

To see the official Burn and Bury official music video please see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rar_fYtqrtY

For more media references on this project please see:

by Judd Legum
https://thinkprogress.org/a-new-memorial-day-tradition-burning-the-confederate-flag-10b41ffd2df5

You can’t ignore the Confederate flag. But you can burn it and then bury it

by Steven W Thrasher
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/04/confederate-flag-burn-it-bury-it

Artist Turns Confederate Flag into Symbol of Creative Resistance

by Pamela K. Johnson
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/artist-turns-confederate-flag-symbol-creative-resistance-n380301

About the artist: John Sims, a Detroit native, is a multi-media conceptual artist, writer and producer, creating projects spanning the areas of installation, text, music, film, performance and large scale activism. His main projects are informed by the vocabulary of mathematical structure, the politics of sacred symbols/anniversaries and the agency of poetry. He is currently completing the Recoloration Proclamation, a 16-year multimedia project featuring: a collection of various Confederate flags installations, a multi-state flag funerals/burnings/burials, a play, a documentary film and a music project containing 13 black music versions of the song Dixie.

He has lectured and exhibited both nationally and internationally and his work has been featured in Art in America, Sculpture, Transition, FiberArts, Science News, CNN, NBC News, New York Times, USA Today, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and the science journal Nature.

(Photo by Deuce Bradwell)

Join us for an aritst talk by New York artist Stephon Senegal on Saturday, May 20th. This is also the last day to view his exhibition “BLU BLK” and Artis Lane’s “Emerging” at the N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art.

Biography
Stephon Senegal was born in Louisiana and raised primarily by his Grandmother. The challenges of his impecunious upbringing became a catalyst for his early visual investigations. Without the more playful trappings of childhood, he created small toy figurines using black electric tape and wooden branches. He continued these explorations throughout his adolescence with hyperrealistic drawings, exploring themes that nearly resulted in expulsion from secondary school.

After completing his early schooling, he attended Howard University for undergraduate studies. The thematic constructs of his work heavily indulged ideas around vice and brutality, a carryover from his adolescent art. While at Howard he began to merge these notions into a more cohesive paradigm: the latter being driven by a childhood fortified through familial dogma and an unchecked exposure to sexuality and violence.

He entered the Maryland Institute College of Art to begin the next level of instruction. The work continued to engage similar premises albeit with a keen focus on the sculptural form. Alluding to the more violent assertions in the work, he used a mixture of demolition and meticulous reconstruction in their creation.

Though he presently works mainly in bronze and steel; his visual language continues to evolve through mediums that include works on paper, photography and video. Senegal plays with ideas of duality in reference to formation and restoration. His work explores this interplay through renderings of human and animal forms, embracing both depravity and breakthrough. Commingled through his art are hints of Catholic tutelage and the esoteric nature of unsanctioned religious ritual cleverly hidden as lifelike, yet liberal formations of mammalian structures. In the words of the artist: “Brutality and carnal impetus are fundamental drivers of human intent and interaction;” an idea fundamental to his artistic discipline.

www.stephonsenegal.com

UPDATE: A reception with Artis Lane was tentatively scheduled for March 3, but has now been booked for
Friday, March 24! The artist will be traveling from Los Angeles for the meet and greet at the N’Namdi Center.
We hope you join us!

“All my life I have worked on three levels of consciousness:
Portraits, Social Injustice & Metaphysics

In my work I strive to heal, uplift and inspire viewers
and collectors to find perfection in their own being.”

— Artis Lane

Artis Shreve was born near the all Black village of North Buxton, Ontario, Canada. At the age of 21, after three years of art college in Toronto, Canada, Artis married Bill Lane and became Artis Shreve Lane. She moved to Detroit to study at Cranbrook Art Academy.  While in the Motor City Ms. Lane painted and sculpted the portraits of many of the business and political leaders of the day; Governor George Romney, Ford family members and Coleman Young, the Mayor of Detroit. From Detroit she moved to New York City, spent time in Texas, Ruidoso, New Mexico and traveled to Mexico City, Mexico to paint many of the prominent families in the region. She eventually moved to Los Angeles where she has lived for over 35 years.

Since her early prominence in Detroit her portrait work has depicted dignitaries like Jacqueline Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, Gordon Getty, President Reagan, Oprah Winfrey and the former First Lady Michele Obama and former President Barack Obama.

“Social issues became the next focus of her work. She was honored by the Smithsonian NationalPortrait Gallery in Washington DC during the installation of her bronze portrait of civil rights leader and long time friend, Rosa Parks. In 1999 she was selected to design the Congressional Medal of Honor awarded to Ms. Parks.”
— Marlena Donahue LA Times Art Critic

 “My Civil Rights images led me naturally to ideas about what
and who we are outside of race.

I went from there to my most  important body of work,
generic man and generic woman emerging out
of the ignorance of material concepts and evolving
into spiritual awareness,”
— Artis Lane.

“In the jaded 1990s, conceptual art rendered spiritual messages an artistic taboo.  Always ahead of her time, Lane has never veered from her subject matter, regardless of the vagaries of what happened to be ‘in’ or ‘out.’  As the new century opened, Museum shows and reviews indicate that more and more artwork had begun to deal with questions plaguing us: who are we, why are we here, what does our spiritual life entail?  As this content inevitably comes to the fore, Lane’s work becomes more and more germane.  As we catch up to her profound vision, Lane will point the way to the future with work that addresses our highest selves.”
— Marlena Donahue LA Times Art Critic

These questions lead her to her Metaphysical work. She leaves the workings of the foundry: the gaiting material, ceramic shell mold, etc., (the “birthing” materials of the foundry), on the bronze to symbolize generic man emerging out of material thinking into spiritual consciousness.

She then shows the work in pairs…the traditional black patina bronze and a version with the ceramic shell pieces remaining as a metaphor for the moralistic/materialistic conversations that mankind has wrestled with throughout eternity.

The new millennium brought new challenges and celebrations of her work. At the age of 80, Lanewas commissioned to create a 12 ft bronze of her “Emerging First Man.” The sculpture was created for an 1100-acre private estate community in Atlanta, GA. In 2007, she was honored by the California African American Museum with a retrospective of her life’s work including almost 100 works of art. One of her creations a bust of the Abolitionist and Suffragette Sojourner Truth was unveiled by First Lady Michelle Obama when installed in Emancipation Hall as part of the collection of the United States Capitol.

Artis Lane will turn 90 this year. She continues to be active in the contemporary art community and receives frequent commissions for both personal and community works of art.  Her work continues to embody her belief in the perfectibility of real man.

The N’Namdi Center is happy to announce that this Thursday, Jan. 19 we will be holding a Meet & Greet with performer Derrick Davis, who is currently starring as the Phantom in the 25th Anniversary Tour of The Phantom of the Opera (at the Detroit Opera House through Sunday, Jan. 22^nd.)

The event will be from 12:00 – 2:00PM at the N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art, 52 E. Forest Ave. Detroit, MI 48201 and is free and open to the public. For more info, visit nnamdicenter.org or call us at 313-831-8700.

Davis is making history on stage as the first man of African and Latin descent to play the role on the tour as well as being one of the first three African-Americans to ever play the role.

ABOUT DERRICK DAVIS:

Derrick Davis is a dynamic and passionate performer who is currently starring in the 25th Anniversary Tour of The Phantom of the Opera as The Phantom. In his exciting theater career, Derrick has held the role of Mufasa on the US Tour of Disney’s The Lion King, covered both Scar and Mufasa on Broadway and most recently starred in Dallas Theater Center’s production of Dreamgirls as Curtis Taylor, Jr.

He has been seen on the Daytime Emmy Awards, Live with Regis and Kelly, Dancing with the Stars, as well as on the big screen in such movies as “Can a Song Save Your Life” and “A Christmas Story”. His concert career includes a sold-out performance of Rogers and Hammerstein works with the Las Vegas Philharmonic, as well as several solo performances in New York City featuring his original works and holiday favorites.

Derrick is deeply grateful for his success thus far and excited about his undoubtedly bright future as he continues to climb towards all of his dreams.

LINKS:

• Derrick Davis’ website: http://therealderrickdavis.com/

• Northwest Indiana Times (NWI Times) article featuring an interview with Davis, while the Phantom of the Opera’s tour was in Chicago last month: http://www.nwitimes.com/entertainment/219/derrick-davis-finds-dream-role-in-phantom-of-the-opera/article_c2f0905d-9ffe-58bd-a4dc-68533c7449b6.html

The N’Namdi Center invites you to join us for a lecture by Ron Maurice Ollie on his life and journey as an art collector of Abstract Art by Black Artists.

Ollie, a native of St. Louis, Missouri, is a serious patron of the arts. Over his life, he has amassed a personal collection of abstract paintings and photographs by nationally and internationally acclaimed black artists. Currently his holdings include more than 200 objects. This collection is dedicated to the memory of his late parents, Mr. and Mrs. Bert and Thelma Ollie who resided in St. Louis, Missouri. Ron is also an avid book collector whose library includes over 2,100 titles on black history and culture as well as volumes of Negro Spiritual sheet music.

His community work and civic involvement have been natural outgrowths of his professional and artistic life. Ron has served as Vice Chair, East Orange, NJ Planning Board; Trustee, Bethany Baptist Church – Newark, NJ; Board Member, NAACP, Newark, NJ; Board Member, Regional Alliance – NY/NJ (consortium of majority engineering, architectural and construction firms whose mission is to increase the pool and capacity of minority firms); Board Member, James E. Lewis Museum, Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD; Board Member and Chair of Development Committee of Harkhomes (a private homeless shelter for men); and Board Member and Chairperson of Development, East Fulton Street Local Development Corporation, Brooklyn, NY. Currently, Ron is a member of the Newark Museum’s Board of Trustees where he is a member of the Executive, Acquisition and Education Committees. He is also a member of the board of the Newark Arts Council.

Ron has a keen interest in architecture and the environmental justice movement. He has spoken publicly on environmental issues and policies as a former board member of INFORM, an environmental advocacy group located in New York City. In 2007, he was appointed commissioner of the Environmental Commission for the City of Newark with the goal of becoming the “greenest” city in the Garden State of NJ.

Ron Ollie is the Vice President Emeritus of Client Service Delivery at Optimatics, an engineering software start-up company. He has spent over 30 years in business development for major Fortune 500 firms and top architecture and engineering firms across the country, where he has enjoyed success in marketing and sales, new client cultivation, corporate forecasting and strategic planning, and has been rewarded with rapid promotions and increasing responsibilities. After graduating from the University of Missouri, School of Mines & Metallurgy (Rolla) with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering, Ron began his career as Resident Sales Engineer and Packaging Sales Rep with Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Since then, he has served in various leadership capacities at Rohm and Haas (Elmwood Park, NJ); ICF Kaiser Engineers (Oakland, CA); Fleming Corporation (NY/NJ); Jackson and Tull, Ltd (Washington, DC) and Metcalf & Eddy, (NY, NY). Ron’s proudest career moment was becoming a partner in 2000 at Malcolm Pirnie, Inc. (White Plains, NY), making him one of a very few African-American partners in a majority-owned consulting engineering firm.

Image: Ron Ollie stands next the the Herbert Gentry piece titled “Ceremony” that he and his wife Monique donated to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Reduced hours for holidays
4:00 – 8:00PM (this day only)

Lecture by Newark Museum board member Ron Ollie on the art of collecting at 6:00PM

Reduced hours for holidays
12 noon – 4:00PM

Open normal hours
11:00AM – 6:00PM

Open normal hours
11:00AM – 6:00PM

Ed Clark Exhibition Opening & Artist Reception
Friday, October 14
6PM – 9PM

This exhibition is presented as a part of our 35 Years celebration: Ed Clark was one of the first artists to be exhibited by George N’Namdi in a New York Abstract Artists group show at Jazzonia (the first N’Namdi gallery) and was an essential part in fostering and educating N’Namdi’s interest and knowledge in the art world. The show will be on display through January 20, 2017.

Clark is a nationally and internationally recognized artist, and one of the most notable African-American artists of his generation. This summer Clark celebrated his 90th birthday and is visiting Detroit. This is your opportunity to meet this eminent artist, as he will be at the reception.

Ed Clark (b. 1926) was a native of Louisiana but moved to Chicago, IL at an early age. He left high school to join the U.S Air Force at the age of 17. In 1947, after service in Guam, he settled back in Chicago. The GI Bill enabled Clark to enroll at the Art Institute of Chicago that year. While pursuing his undergraduate degree, he studied abroad in Paris at the L’Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Clark moved to New York and helped co-found a gallery in SoHo in 1957. His trademark brushstroke and vibrant contrasting colors exude confidence, intuition, and a mastery of gestural control and materials.

Collections: N’Namdi Collection, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Art Institute of Chicago, Detroit Institute of Arts, Studio Museum in Harlem, MAM-Museum of Modern Art in Bahai (Brazil), MoMA, Museum of Modern Art in NYC.

Exhibitions: Whitney Biennial, 1973; Retrospective, Studio Museum in Harlem, 1980; Explorations in the City of Lights: African-American Artists in Paris, 1945-1975, Studio Museum in Harlem, 1996; Blues for Smoke, Whitney Museum of American Art, 2013.