Detroit's unique and partly abandoned cityscape has scarred its image around the world for decades. But in the last several years journalists have begun to view the city through a different lens, focusing on the wide range of contemporary artists finding inspiration amid the emptiness and adding a more complex chapter to the story of a city long labeled as a haunting symbol of U.S. economic decline. In Canvas Detroit, Julie Pincus and Nichole Christian combine vibrant full-color photography of the city's much-buzzed-about art scene with thoughtful narrative that explores the art and artists that are re-creating Detroit.
Canvas Detroit captures hundreds of pieces of artwork in many forms-including large-scale and small-scale murals, sculptures, portraits, light projections, wearable art, and installations (made with wood, glass, living plants, fiber, and fabric). Works are situated in both obvious and more hidden spaces, including on and in houses, garages, factories, alleyways, doors, and walls, while some structures have been entirely transformed into art. Pincus and Christian profile internationally known figures like Banksy, Matthew Barney, and Tyree Guyton; prominent Detroit artists such as Scott Hocking, Jerome Ferretti, and Robert Sestock; and collectives like Power House Productions, Hygenic Dress League, the Empowerment Plan, and Theatre Bizarre. Canvas Detroit also features contributions by Marion Jackson, John Gallagher, Michael H. Hodges, Rebecca R. Hart, and Linda Yablonsky that contextualize the current artistic moment in the city.
This beautifully designed and informative volume showcases the stunning breadth and depth of artwork currently being done in Detroit. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in arts and culture in the city.
Julie Pincus is an award-winning graphic designer specializing in brand identity and communications for Fortune 500 companies, nonprofit arts organizations, and foundations. She received her BFA from the University of Michigan and her MFA from Yale University. Born and raised in metropolitan Detroit, Julie now lives in New York City with her husban
Show moreDetroit's unique and partly abandoned cityscape has scarred its image around the world for decades. But in the last several years journalists have begun to view the city through a different lens, focusing on the wide range of contemporary artists finding inspiration amid the emptiness and adding a more complex chapter to the story of a city long labeled as a haunting symbol of U.S. economic decline. In Canvas Detroit, Julie Pincus and Nichole Christian combine vibrant full-color photography of the city's much-buzzed-about art scene with thoughtful narrative that explores the art and artists that are re-creating Detroit.
Canvas Detroit captures hundreds of pieces of artwork in many forms-including large-scale and small-scale murals, sculptures, portraits, light projections, wearable art, and installations (made with wood, glass, living plants, fiber, and fabric). Works are situated in both obvious and more hidden spaces, including on and in houses, garages, factories, alleyways, doors, and walls, while some structures have been entirely transformed into art. Pincus and Christian profile internationally known figures like Banksy, Matthew Barney, and Tyree Guyton; prominent Detroit artists such as Scott Hocking, Jerome Ferretti, and Robert Sestock; and collectives like Power House Productions, Hygenic Dress League, the Empowerment Plan, and Theatre Bizarre. Canvas Detroit also features contributions by Marion Jackson, John Gallagher, Michael H. Hodges, Rebecca R. Hart, and Linda Yablonsky that contextualize the current artistic moment in the city.
This beautifully designed and informative volume showcases the stunning breadth and depth of artwork currently being done in Detroit. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in arts and culture in the city.
Julie Pincus is an award-winning graphic designer specializing in brand identity and communications for Fortune 500 companies, nonprofit arts organizations, and foundations. She received her BFA from the University of Michigan and her MFA from Yale University. Born and raised in metropolitan Detroit, Julie now lives in New York City with her husban
Show moreJulie Pincus is an award-winning graphic designer specializing in brand identity and communications for Fortune 500 companies, nonprofit arts organizations, and foundations. She received her BFA from the University of Michigan and her MFA from Yale University. Born and raised in metropolitan Detroit, Julie now lives in New York City with her husband. Nichole Christian is a writer and Detroit native who began her career as a staff member for some of the nation's top news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Time magazine, the New York Times, and the Detroit Free Press. Her work appears in the books Dear Dad: Reflections on Fatherhood and Portraits 9/11/01: The Collected "Portraits of Grief" from the New York Times. She holds a BA in journalism from Wayne State University's Journalism Institute for Media Diversity and lives in suburban Detroit with her husband and daughter.
Canvas Detroit could have easily just have been a photo book of
Detroit street art. Instead, designer Julie Pincus and author
Nichole Christian were determined to tell the stories of the people
behind the art, as well as their individual motives. The temporal
nature of street art is why a book like Canvas Detroit is so
important. It's also important to
catalog these artists because many of them seem more concerned with
unleashing their own artistic bug than with promoting their
work.--Lee DeVito "Metro Times"
Canvas Detroit is doing what we all know needs to be done for
Detroit: taking its reputation of being dark and dangerous and
countering that by displaying the energy, determination,
generosity, and sheer talent of the artists who are flooding the
city . . . Together, these authors have crafted a book which is a
beautiful collection of artwork in many forms including murals,
sculptures, portraits, light projections, wearable art and
installations.--Emily Pape "Real Detroit Weekly"
A masterful achievement five years in the making, Canvas Detroit,
conceived and designed by Julie Pincus and written by Nichole
Christian captures rare moments in Detroit's ever-changing
landscape through portraits of artists who have tested the limits
of the city's wild and public spaces.--My Jewish Detroit "My Jewish
Detroit"
An absolute "must-have" for twenty-first century artbook
shelves!--James A. Cox "Midwest Book Review"
Lavishly illustrated with 450 photos, the nearly 300-page book
profiles dozens of artists and was written by Julie Pincus and
Nichole Christian, with additional essays by others, including Free
Press reporter John Gallagher.--Mark Stryker "Detroit Free
Press"
The sheer size, the breadth of this place. . . . The cascading
histories, shining at one moment, crumbling the next. The vast
prairie lands within the metropolis. The freeways that divided
neighborhoods where people lived and also no longer did. And the
fist of Joe Louis--enormous! All of it an incitement to make
art.--Linda Yablonsky
The Detroit 'Canvas' includes 'large-scale and small-scale murals,
sculptures, portraits, light projections, wearable art, ' and
various installations, some "on and inhouses, garages, factories,
alleyways, doors, and walls." Collectively, said Pincus, they offer
a somewhat abstract message that Detroit is indeed alive and well -
at least from an artistic sense. Pincus, of course, deserves credit
for helping convey that fact. The book, which offers a riveting and
inspiring look at the creators of street art, is a testament to her
own ingenuity and determination, of her desire and willingness to
tell a story that begged to be told.--Tom Kirvan "Detroit Legal
News"
Their book is looking more and more like a bestseller.-- "The
Examiner"
You don't often get a book to review that makes you drop everything
and simply say, 'Wow.' But Canvas Detroit almost made me miss this
magazine's June deadline because I kept picking it up. Julie Pincus
and Nichole Christian take an amazing journey across Detroit's
thriving art scene. . . But it's much more than a picture book,
rounded out with artist profiles and contributions from John
Gallagher, Rebecca Hart, Linda Yablonsky, and others who cover the
art and architecture beat in Detroit and Beyond. This is a
coffee-table-worthy book that has substance to keep you coming back
for more.--Steve Wilke "Hour Detroit"
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