MIAD Bridge

MIADbridge: Art + Public

a photo of the Dorchester Project Library and Archive by Jason Smith with permission by artist Theaster Gates

Dear Reader, Finding ourselves reaching back to our roots, this issue of Art + Public takes a look at the Midwest and the artists making a name, and a home, for themselves there. The Midwest is known for its slower pace and friendly cadence and the artists featured in these pages live up to the well-mannered hype. But be careful not to confuse well-mannered with well-behaved, as these creative minds are both breaking rules and breaking new ground in their pursuit of richer, more colorful communities.

On page 6, Step Back & Look at the World, Milwaukee native Isabel Kent takes a close and mindful look at today’s society and ways that we can unlock our deepest potential for an empathetic and well-rounded view of our world. Her words are accompanied by the delicate and perceptive illustrations of guest illustrator Sandra Leidecker. On page 10, If No One Hates It, No One Loves It, you’ll find an exclusive interview with founder and director of The Heidelberg project, Tyree Guyton and Jenenne Whitfield. The two discuss the history of the project, what kind of obstacles they’ve encountered along the way, how they hope to continue influencing their home base of Detroit, Michigan, and what keeps them inspired to work on in spite of dissent. And in our final feature on page 18, The House that Theaster Gates Built, author Deanna Isaacs of the Chicago Reader investigates the work and service of artist Theaster

Gates and his continued development of a previously declining neighborhood on 69th Street and Dorchester Avenue in the city of Chicago. His work challenges the expecations often set on artists and seeks to develop new ways of creating spaces for dialogue and growth.

In our interview with Tyree Guyton, he asked (more than once), “What is art today?” And I think it’s safe to say that all of the individuals represented in these pages are not only asking this question, but answering it with bold and unapolgetic strides, establishing new standards for the ways we function within our environments. These artists as revolutionaries are challenging us to consider how we act on the creative passions and inclinations within us. As Picasso once said, “I have always believed and still believe, that artists who live and work with spiritual values cannot and should not remain indifferent to a conflict in which the highest values of humanity and civilization are at stake.”

There’s a lot of great content in this issue, and far be it from me to keep you from it. As you read, I ask you to consider Tyree Guyton’s question for us: “What is art today?” Might we never stop asking.

Sincerely,

Nate Pyper Editor of Art + Public

a photo of the Dorchester Project Library and Archive by Jason Smith with permission by artist Theaster Gates

by Isabel Kent

illustrations by Sandra Leidecker

MIADbridge: Art + Public

It’s such a strange thing, and incredible and beautiful, but rolling across that great sphere is also turmoil. Much of existence, perceived through the eyes of a human, is sorrow and violence, manifesting itself in multitudes of particular guises - war, poverty, famine, prejudice, crime, etc. But we’re stuck here. So, for the sake of being here, of living, how do we make it better? How do we go about diminishing these problems?

Where can we possibly start? Underlying most of them, when the complications and differences are for the moment, stripped away, is something simple. For whatever reason, amidst the accumulated confusion of contemporary human life, we fall into the denial or hatred of another human being.

We know that humans are at once imperfect and magnificent. What is difficult is accepting the imperfect as inevitable, and forgiving it in ourselves so that we can forgive it in others. There is so much sameness, if we decide to become aware of it. Our genetic code, which means our basic anatomical structure, which means our physiological functions, are fundamentally identical.

We have the capacity to empathize with one another, and we need to use this.

What I am saying is obviously nothing new. But the fact that it has survived thus far in the course of human civilization only serves to testify to its solidarity. It is simple, but I think it has profound implications. In all the world’s major religions, the basic tenet, the “Golden Rule,” is the same. We should “Do unto others what we would have done unto us.” Although this is drawn from

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“Every separation is a link.”

– Simone Weil

“We had a dim premonition that power-mad gangsters would one day use art itself as a way of deadening men’s minds.” – Hans Jean Arp

religion and may seem idealistic, it’s tenets are at base, human, and extend to the nature of our experience in everyday life. For example, how can we expect others to have respect for our own views if we do not respect theirs? And how can we expect to get anything out of a conversation if we don’t try to understand what the other person is trying to get across?

A sense of empathy, as current research in neuroscience and psychology is finding, really does permeate our lives. Without having to will a conscious decision, we register the body language and facial expressions of those around us. We are able to base this in our own experience and realize the analogous intentions behind the behavior of others.

So what happens when empathy ceases to function?

On an individual scale, this can be a major component of closed-mindedness, arguments, and physical fights.

Cases in point are bullying, domestic violence, and gang violence. Among larger groups this is exhibited in similar ways, largely as prejudice against, and mistreatment and/or suppression of, another people. Extreme cases are genocide and war. Can’t these be seen as large-scale manifestations of the inability to take another’s perspective? I don’t mean to oversimplify these grand issues.

There are certainly various other complications that come into play. Many of these complications, however, could be explained as themselves arising partially as a consequence of lack of understanding between people. Circumstances like these coalesce and build upon each other, eventually forming one mass conflict, leading to further atrocities.

A clash occurs when we see an individual or group as other than ourselves, that we disagree with so fervently that it appears foreign enough to be designated as wrong or even evil. To protect ourselves we often feel the need to do something to suppress that other. If these notions push further into action, physical harm is done. The thoughts themselves however, are already silently germinating this view of the world. In turn, this obviously impacts the deeds one carries out.

If one continues this way unawares, the effects will only multiply.

But the human brain is malleable (Boroditsky 6).

Biases can be turned around if they are brought to one’s attention. The problem is that maybe reminders are not prevalent in our everyday lives. We may see images of war on the news, but this is perhaps not specific enough.

We still watch through our own tinted lenses, maybe as a proponent of one or the other of the conflicting sides. What should be emphasized is the nature of the core disagreement, how and why it exists, perhaps that it should not exist, and what the resolution may be. We also need to be made more aware of our own slant and the perspective we are missing in our repertoire. Once we can see all involved outlooks more holistically, we notice their inherent sameness, and the ensuing ridiculousness of antagonism.

To illustrate a concrete example of a social issue involving the inability to take on another perspective, consider the rift between the wealthiest and poorest classes in the United States. My estimation is that much of the very wealthy are so adapted to their way of living that they are not aware of the vast struggles of the impoverished. They must know that the poor do in fact exist, but they cannot put themselves in that situation, because they have never been there and do not relate to it experientially, and they also probably feel no reason to make attempts to do so. Whatever charities may be goading them to donate are just an annoyance. The thought of taking on the vantage of the poor does not cross their mind, at least not with any great urgency.

And frankly, it would just be too much effort. But if something were to make them, imagine the impact it could have. If the wealthy were made to live like the poor,

fection, the dilemmas are much less common. Throughout this entire process, empathy aids us.

In 2009, President Obama propounded the qualifications he deemed necessary for successors to the Supreme Court. He included everything one might expect: extensive legal experience, a spotless ethical record, and dedication to the rule of law (Garrett 1). However, Obama also added empathy. He stated, I will seek someone who understands that justice isn’t about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a casebook; it is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people’s lives, whether they can make a living and care for their families, whether they feel safe in their homes and welcome in their own nation. I view that quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people’s hopes and struggles, as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes. (Garrett 1).

When a predicament comes to the fore, empathy helps us determine a just solution. Yes, we do have to rely on written law as a solid standard, but we also must be considerate of the circumstances under which the individuals involved acted. Maybe someone acted wrongly, did something that is illegal, but maybe it was because they were facing such plight, that for them at that time, it was the best decision. We need to be understanding of this. A person who may endanger others cannot be dismissed, but they also cannot be punished for being human. In all cases, beyond categorization of wronged and wrong-doer, and because all of us are really both, we need to be able to see an individual’s suffering and act out of compassion in an effort to correct it. This in itself serves to connect. In it is a realization that we are all human and that we all share the same life.

The nature of how we view and interact with others has directed culture, politics, economics, and human society as a whole, which also extends to our

MIADbridge: Art + Public

or to just experience a small part of such a life, perhaps they would realize how awful it can be. To know that they personally would not want to be in a position of poverty may be enough for them to conclude that since there are other humans that are in that place, they need to be helped.

The prior example becomes an issue of human rights. Throughout the world, the poor lack many basic entitlements of life because they are bound by their circumstances. In extreme conditions, there is lack of adequate shelter and nourishment to even stay alive. When the pressure of mortality is so present, anything beyond the necessities of life must seem frivolous. Furthermore, although it varies depending on the specific location, opportunities in jobs, education, and all areas of life, are in scarce supply. Law and justice may be seen as concepts created for the purpose of treating all equally in discernment of right or wrong action, in protecting individuals from mistreatment, and overall, to keep human society as a whole in order and running smoothly. But they are also founded on an emotional groundwork. Humans are innately social, require contact with others for health and well-being, and have built society based on the ability to operate in a network.

For this to function properly, cooperation between people is essential. And in order for this to occur, we need to at least have respect for the views of others. This is not to say that it will be perfect.

Dilemmas will inevitably arise.

The paradox is that once we acknowledge human imper-

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Boroditsky, Lera. “Empathy and Other Mysteries.” American Scholar.

80.1 (2011): 44-52. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Apr. 2011.

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Garret, Major. “Obama Pushes for ‘Empathetic’ Supreme Court Justices.” FoxNews.com. Fox News Network, LLC. 1 May 2009. Web. 13 Apr. 2011 Blakeslee, Sandra. “Cells That Read Minds.” The New York Times. The New York Times Co. 10 Jan. 2006.

Web. 19 Apr. 2011..

impact on the environment.

All of these things provide us with a striking image of how we participate in and create our world.

This web of interrelationships has biological foundations, into which current studies surrounding the nature of the human nervous system have brought new insights. A region toward the front of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex, or MPFC, activates when we are pondering our own feelings, but also when we are thinking about or observing those same feelings in another (Boroditsky 5). More specifically, a class of cells called mirror neurons, which are located in various areas of the brain, have been found to direct our ability to read not only another person’s actions, but also the intentions and emotions behind them. In an interview with the New York Times, Dr. Giacomo Rizzolatti, a neuroscientist at the University of Parma credited with some of the first research of these structures in the 1990’s, was quoted in saying, “We are exquisitely social creatures. Our survival depends on understanding the actions, intentions, and emotions of others. Mirror neurons allow us to grasp the minds of others not through conceptual reasoning but through direct simulation” (Blakeslee 1).

Here is very real evidence of just how connected we are. In a sense we can simultaneously experience the thoughts and actions of another. This also poses the intimate connectivity of thought, action, and language. These cells fire when one performs an action, sees another carrying out that action, hears it happening, says the word for that action, or hears that word (Blakeslee 1). Mirror neurons can be seen as the meeting place of these different avenues, which all allow for understanding between people, and are essentially linked as a means of communication whose framework is emotional.

It is also important to note that social emotions like shame, pride, embarrassment, and so on, are centered in a uniquely human mirror neuron system in a brain

region called the insula. In a study conducted by Dr. Christian Keysers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, it was found that when people watched a hand go to caress someone and then saw another hand push it away, this region registered the pain of rejection. Moreover, he noted that humiliation appeared to be “mapped in the brain by the same mechanisms that encode real physical pain” (Blakeslee 3). This just goes to show us that when someone is suffering from emotional trauma, they are also really ailing from physical distress.

When mirror neurons malfunction, an emotional level of communication ceases to occur. It is now thought that this is a major cause of Autism and Aspberger’s disease.

Autistic individuals are often cited as sort of living in their own world, or being highly antisocial. It could be that the neural basis of social abilities is lacking, and they therefore are significantly unable to relate to other people. Studies show that these individuals can identify an emotional facial expression, and even imitate it, but they do not feel its emotional significance (Blakeslee 2).

A similar effect is seen in individuals with Aspberger’s, who are unable to read facial expressions and vocal inflections, recognize sarcasm, and also cannot understand figurative language. They interpret everything logically and literally. For individuals with either disorder, everyday life is made extremely difficult simply because they cannot adequately relate socially and emotionally to other people.

The importance of empathy is apparent. It lends us the competence to recognize that other viewpoints must be just as valid as our own. Scientific research has provided us with more clues as to how and why this phenomenon operates, and has given us greater insight into how incredible this biological capacity truly is.

The complexity and social grounding of our empathy is something uniquely human. It lies behind much of our daily decisions and behavior, and is one of the key components of how we have developed as a society.

Truly, it needs to exist for us to exist. All of this serves to remind us of empathy’s profundity. But what teaches us most is the face-to-face encounter in which we share a real and fathomless humanness with another. h

www.RoadsideArchitecture.com

If no one hates it, no one loves it.

A discussion with Tyree Guyton and Jenenne Whitfield – directors of the Heidelberg Project in Detroit, MI.

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Art + Public: Let’s start at the beginning - you both grew up in Detroit. Can you share what it was like growing up in the city? What didn’t sit well with you that moved you to action in the future? What kind of events impacted your relationship with the city?

Tyree Guyton: I grew up in the sixties, I remember seeing the Black Panthers walk up and down Mount Elliot Street, which is a main thoroughfare. It was a time when people were dealing with segregation and www.RoadsideArchitecture.com racism and things of that nature. I lived on Heidelberg Street and I remember it being a very beautiful place.

“My job as an educator is to help people understand that the past is so important for the future.” and I remember I had this great instructor who said to me, “what do you want to do with your art work?”

And I had to really think about that. And in 1986, I was standing on the porch of the house (the Dotty Wotty house) and had this epiphany. And I went out there and began to transform my neighborhood.

AP: So what is the Heidelberg Project? If people go there, what do they see?

T: It’s an outdoor art environment - a whimsical, funky environment. It’s also an institution of higher learning.

It’s my way of taking a neighborhood that was faced with some problems and a lot of challenges and putting my own spin on it as an artist and creating something that is now magical.

AP: What was the neighborhood like before you started doing the work?

T: When I was a kid, the neighborhood was a beautiful place. Then it began to change. The 1967 riots that took place there really brought about a great separation and people began to leave and leave behind abandoned structures and vacant lots. There were people living in fear.

Very diverse, white and black people living there. A very interesting time for me as a kid growing up.

Jenenne Whitfield: And I grew up in the 70s, on a different side of town than Tyree. If you know anything about the history of Detroit, there’s the whole east side and west side and each one claims to be better than the other, so obviously when I met Tyree, I’m from the west side, I was thinking, “what is this man doing over here?” But I didn’t have any serious community or civic interest. I was climbing the corporate ladder. I was really more or less involved in my circle of friends and my family and Detroit was just simply home. So it wasn’t until I actually met Tyree 18 years ago that my life changed and I became more interested in this kind of community activism work.

AP: So how did the Heidelberg Project start?

T: My background was fine arts, I went to art school,

J: Urban renewal came in and played a part that broke up what was once known as a thriving African American community. That area where the Heidelberg Project sits is the oldest African American community in Detroit.

It’s where a lot of southerners migrated looking for jobs in the automobile industry and it was one of the few places they could live. So here’s this place where there’s amazing music coming out of, we had Paradise Valley, there were over 300 African American-owned businesses. It was a just a really thriving community and it all got busted up. And it took on changes for the worse.

AP: One of the unique aspects of the Heidelberg Project is the presence of found objects and using what’s already there in the landscape. What’s the significance of decorating an old house as opposed to building something new? What’s the significance of using the houses as a backdrop for the work that you’re making?

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AP: It’s beautiful being able to see the history right there. You can see how the present and past are interacting. If something is demolished and something new is built over, that visual history is lost, but being able to see it is pretty powerful.

Jenenne, can you tell me how your involvement with the project started?

J: A wrong turn down Heidelberg Street in 1993. I was on my way back to work. At that particular time, I was a loan officer working for a bank. I was doing okay as far as I was concerned. I was climbing the corporate ladder.

I wasn’t looking for this. But I drove down the street and

AP: I assume that in the community there was a lot of misunderstanding at first and a lot of people probably saw the project as an eyesore. How did you press on through that dissent?

T: At first, people thought that I was crazy. But I will say that you have to be crazy enough to follow your dreams.

I began to trust myself, and over time, people began to come around. But the city demolished the project twice.

And I went out there and decided I was going to rebuild the project. The first demolition, I decided I would go in and make it better than before. And then after the second demolition, it was better than the second time.

And people saw that. But it took time talking with people, it took time to cultivate relationships, and learning to listen to what the people were saying. I mean, here’s something brand new being introduced to the people, so it took time. And I saw the importance of hanging in there. People began to say, “there must be something to this.” So it took time. Time is so important.

You go to those community meetings and you educate people about art. What is art today?

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MIADbridge: Art + Public

T: I was in Berlin last year [and noticed] how some of those buildings that date back to the war are still standing. You can see the bullet holes and where bombs were dropped and how some of the buildings burned.

They saw the importance of leaving those buildings up to educate the world. Here in this country, we have a tendency of tearing down. We can learn a lot from what I saw in Berlin. That’s one of the reasons I saw the importance of utilizing those buildings and saying, “we gotta learn from this.” I’m going keep this whole structure, fix it up artistically, and then my job as an educator is to help people to understand that the past is so important for the future.

asked (unbeknownst to me) the artist, “what the hell is all of this?” Because in my mind, he was wasting time.

We began to talk and he asked me some questions - he asked me how was I giving back to the community. I didn’t like that question; it really pissed me off. Eventually, he asked if I would help him. He asked, “so you’re a banker?”, and I said yes. So he said, “so you make money for other people?”, and I said yes. He said, “well can you make money for me?”, and I said no. And then a year later, I gave up corporate America completely and took on something I knew nothing about. I had fear. I was in a completely different realm. I tell people, to this day, I’ve had butterflies in my stomach for 18 years. It’s challenging, it’s interesting, it’s different. We’re building a legacy. From a societal perspective, we’re creating something from nothing. So what I do is organize and try to bring a sense of structure and credibility to what Tyree has envisioned. It’s definitely a two-part process and I’ve enjoyed it because I’ve learned a lot along the way. I don’t think either of us knew that it was going to grow into what has become known today as Heidelbergology. That’s where we are now.

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AP: How have the natural elements - the rain, the wind, the snow - become contributors to the project?

J: There are people that flock to see the Heidelberg Project completely buried in snow, completely buried in leaves. Photographers will come out on a rainy day and want to take pictures from different perspectives.

It’s been called a photographer’s playground. I like the idea that we’re not talking about preserving things when what we really need to be trying to preserve is the human spirit. So when things begin to break down

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Unless it wants to break faith with its [innate] social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.” – Ernst Fischer

J: I think sometimes people have a tendency of hitting the road when the road gets a little tough, and they give up. And so, you’re talking 25 years of intense work. It never stops. It’s not like we took a 2-year break and said we’re just going to chill for a minute. It was non-stop.

And I love the symbolism behind a lot of what happens.

The whole concept of using found discarded objects, to me, is symbolic of how our communities have become discarded. And then the unconscious method of picking these up and dusting them off and adding color and the kind of message that sends to a community that is ravaged or torn down. And when it keeps coming back and keeps coming back, then they begin to think, “maybe there’s some value here. Maybe there’s some value for myself.” And when they see Tyree, a man in the community they can relate to, not giving up and getting up and doing it again and again, what kind of message are they receiving? What might be possible for them to get up and do? And we’re seeing a lot of that now. When [Tyree] says art is like a medicine, a medicine that is a bitter pill to swallow. But then it gets into the bloodstream and it does its work – that’s the whole process of what’s happened in the community now. It’s very powerful. But you have to have that staying power.

and go back to the earth and become replaced – that’s the same thing that happens with life. So it’s not about the things -Tyree often says that the art is just the catalyst - it’s more about the effect that the thing is having on people, and how we’re inspiring people into action.

T: I want to piggyback off of what she just said. The world itself, the earth, it’s a work in progress. It’s forever changing. And we are just conduits. A part of this divine purpose that we call life. So what is art today? Do you have to put it in an institution? I find myself questioning those institutions and the way we try to preserve things.

AP: Looking at how your project has become like a sort of institution or destination place, I’m curious... what do you think about the difference between a public place as art and a public place as a facilitator of art?

J: I think that there’s a concept of public art that is not really effective, first of all. It’s beautiful to see a cute statue in front of a building of someone who did something and sitting on a horse or whatever or more up to date, murals are cute. But it doesn’t take into consideration that you don’t just put something somewhere and that’s the end of it. To me, the Heidelberg Project is a living museum, which means that people interact with not only the things, they interact with the community, they interact with the street, they interact with other people that come there, and it’s ongoing. So therefore art becomes infused into the bloodstream and what I

think is happening is people are inspired to be creative in their own way.

T: Early on when I first started the project, I wanted everybody to like the project. Today, I don’t want that. I want people who come to visit the project to get whatever they get from it. And let’s just say you get a group to come over, you get someone to come visit the project and they don’t like it – that’s what they get. And so what I’m saying is that they get what they get. I tell people this all the time – I talk to a lot of young artists and they get really upset because someone looks at their piece and they have some very bad things to say about it and the artists get discouraged. You have to learn that that’s part of the magic. Everybody’s not going to like what you do. And you need contrast, you need opposites, you need people to like it and you need people not to like it. And to top it off, there are days I don’t like myself, so why would I expect for everybody to like what I do? So whatever they get, that’s wonderful. The challenge is to do it in a way that they get something.

AP: What you were saying about the reception of your work reminds me of a quote by Tibor Kalman: “When you make something no one hates, no one loves it.” And i think that should even be a goal as an artist, that you create work that is so infuriating that people are so bewildered by it that their senses are caught off guard and they have to respond. It pulls it out of them and they have to think about it. They have to keep a discussion going.

“Whatever they get, that’s wonderful. The challenge is to do it in a way that they get something.”

J: One thing we didn’t mention about the concept behind the dots [present in the Heidelberg Project] is that we’re connecting people. All people. Let’s just say you get a group of Jewish women and they see that particular oven configuration with the shoe stuffed in – they got something really heavy from that because it takes them back to their own Jewish roots. So there’s something in the Heidelberg Project for everybody. And how it might carry over into what they do we have yet to learn, but we do get a lot of letters from people who take elements from what they’ve seen in the Heidelberg Project – one

I really enjoy how this project isn’t a conventional way of addressing a problem. I read somewhere that you’ve called your work abstract advocacy. Could you expand on that concept?

J: Abstract advocacy is the introduction of new information that in the short term changes attitudes and in the long term changes behavior.

Now we’re measuring that because we have examples of how that has happened. You have to think of it in terms of abstract, intermediate, and concrete. Concrete is an example of a soup kitchen. You go, you sit down, and eat a bowl of soup. Intermediate is like maybe you can cook the soup and then eat the soup. But abstract means that we’re teaching you how to find the ingredients, find the soup, and eat the soup all on your own without any help. So in other words, the concept of abstract is that you’re inspiring people to action, to learn how to do, and to think for themselves and discover the new possibilities within themselves.

AP: Detroit from a national perspective – it’s rebuilding, but there’s a sense of a city in decline, suffering from the effects of racial tension, urban

MIADbridge: Art + Public

AP: You’re attracting audiences that wouldn’t normally come into a place like this. People from all over the world. What do you hope that they walk away with? Because now this is affecting more than just this community in Detroit. It’s becoming global and people are recognizing it.

was even a mathematician taking elements of what they saw at the Heidelberg Project as a way to strengthen their way of educating their students in math. Now I don’t know how they did that, but that definitely shows how the project is universal and touches on more than just art. As Tyree says and now I’m saying it – what is art today? It’s a whole lot.

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decay, inner city abandonment, etc. What hopes for the city do you have? Where do you see it headed and what do you have to say to the naysayers?

J: First of all, I want to say this – from my perspective, there’s too much focus on the landscape. We’re a big city. We used to be a city of 2 million people. So what it’s not 2 million any more? There needs to be more of a focus on the people. The people of Detroit are very very, in my opinion, very special. We’ve always had to be good at whatever we did because we’re overshadowed by the automobile industry. So you have these musicians and they go to play in places like Europe and they hear they’re from Detroit and they’re like, “oh, we know you’re going to be good.” We’ve got that kind of a reputation. Detroit is also known as a city of originality and visionaries. Visionaries come out of Detroit all the time. So the way that people look at the economy and they say the city is falling a part, they’re looking at the landscape. And really that chaos is just a platform and a new canvas for rebuilding; and this time it’s happening on a more grassroots level and the corporate hierarchy has fallen. So it looks chaotic from all those people who are judging based on what they’re used to, but it’s a new day. Art and culture’s at the forefront.

T: You give people reason to see beauty. The city of Detroit. I see the beauty in the chaos. When they said to me, you gotta find your own way – I found my own way. 2 + 2 = 8. Making it up. It’s a new way of helping people to understand the importance of change.

J: Think about this too – think about the fact that any time you get someone to criticize [the city] or to talk about it or to say, “oh, Detroit has fallen,” they’re only coming from the perspective of what they already know and what they’ve seen. And a lot of times what gets publicized are the people who are sitting in those big places who are used to a certain way of life. Well they caused this mess that we’re in anyway, so they’re the ones that are doing the judging, while there’s another group of people underground who are - excuse my French - making shit happen. And that’s what we’re doing, that’s what is happening. And we really don’t have time, in my mind, to think about how we counter what they’re saying. Say on! Keep talking, and before you know it,

you’re going to see some new change and you’re going to be wondering what the hell happened. That’s the road that we’re on right now.

AP: There’s a quote by Marian Bantjes I’d like to share. “Truly imaginative work is extremely important in society ... And you just never know who is going to take something from that and turn it into something. Because inspiration is cross-pollinating.

A piece of mine may inspire a playwright or scientist or novelist. And that in turn may be the seed that inspires a doctor or philanthropist or babysitter.”

So what are your thoughts on intangible aspirations - things we can’t touch or feel or measure?

J: Let me just say that the quote is right on. It is in fact – alright, gotta let this cat out of the bag – I’m a doctor of metaphysics. So it is in fact those things you can’t see that are the most important. And the best example I can give of that is – let’s just say somebody dies and everybody’s all upset and the person’s laying there in front of them. What you’re upset about is the animation that existed in that person that you couldn’t see. So it must be that animation or those things you can’t see or those invisible principles of love and power and justice and beauty and foundation and intelligence. All those are invisible things, they’re only manifestations. So that’s why art is a catalyst for a much deeper and more powerful work which is to inspire the human spirit.

T: I’m sitting here and what you just said, Jenenne, is very powerful. And I’m looking at the tree [outside of the window] and the wind that’s blowing the branches.

I don’t see it, but I see the results of it. My grandfather said to me that he could see the wind blowing. And I remember saying to him, what do you mean by that? In time, he said. I can sit here today and, looking out the window, I can see the wind blowing. That’s why I started the Heidelberg Project. I didn’t see it at first, but then something was shown to me that made me go out there and do something that became tangible for the world to come in to see and to touch. And it all started with a thought in my mind.

T: People get afraid to just do it. It’s kind of like a bird – it doesn’t contemplate flying, it just does it. And we have to learn to take the same way with thinking. “Just do it.” But people get afraid. I remember people said to me, you can’t fight government... “Just do it.” If I’m going to get in trouble, then let me get in trouble for something I believe in, something that I’m willing to die for. And something that has made a difference in the lives of people all over the world. And if they tore it down tomorrow... that’s why Jenenne and I have these discussions. We have this one house and the city was trying to get us to pay the taxes on it, even though we’re a non-profit organization. And so she said, “so what if they were to come over and take it? Guess what? Take it! Tear it down!”

J: Because we’re not preserving things.

www.RoadsideArchitecture.com

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MIADbridge: Art + Public

J: So it is that same principle of abstract, intermediate, and concrete. And then it’s thought, then it’s word, and then the deed is carried out. So [Marian]’s right on the money. And that’s why I said – how can you have new possibilities if you’re only coming from a place of what you already know? Or think you know? So that’s why the big boys and the people who are making all the predictions and saying all the things that they’re saying - it’s boring. What else you got? Can’t you actually do something instead?

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Northern Spark Festival Minneapolis, MN

“The final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate, the moral consciousness of people.” – Leo Tolstoyflow

Based on the concept of nuite blanche, or “white night,” the Northern Spark Festival is a dusk to dawn community-wide event along the Mississippi River and its surrounding areas. The kinds of works represented range from full-building projections and floating works on barges to headphone concerts and audio environments. Over 200 artists come together to create more than 100 installations that transform the city, if not just for a few hours.

RedLine Milwaukee Milwaukee, WI

RedLine Milwaukee is an urban laboratory that seeks to nourish the individual practice of contemporary art and to stimulate the creative potential of the local community to which we are linked. Through residency, education, outreach and challenging exhibition programs with a focus on social justice, RedLine inspires and impacts new generations of cultural and civic transformers.

Good Citizen Gallery St. Louis, MO What was once an old storefront with a billboard on its roof has been acquisitioned and transformed into an alternative gallery space by St. Louis native Andrew James. Taking advantage of the space’s possibilities, James takes selected works from current shows showing downstairs and enlarges them to be printed and featured on both sides of the large billboard, which has become something of a local wonder. Artists featured at the Good Citizen Gallery have the unique opportunity to influence a greater audience by showing their work on a large outdoor canvas for any casual passerby to see.

In Action: An Overview of creative work in Midwest The Heidelberg Project Detroit, MI

What started as an epiphany in 1986 has grown to become a worldrenowned outdoor art environment that is steadily transforming the Detroit landscape and providing the city with the energy and positive thinking it needs to pull itself out of the slump it’s been overcoming for the past few decades. Forward-thinkers like Tyree Guyton and Jenenne Whitfield, founder and executive director of the project respectively, are committed to providing their community with an educational and crosscity collaborative life-changing experience.

Dorchester Project Library & Archive Chicago, IL

The Midwest is home to many enriching creative endeavors and we’ve taken the time to highlight five such initiatives. From the Northern Spark Festival in Minneapolis, Minnesota to the Good Citizen Gallery and its outdoor large-scale canvas in St. Louis, Missouri, these are projects that are continually asking “what is art today?”

To view more of these kinds of community-wide participatory efforts across the Midwest, visit our website or scan the QR code below to view it on your mobile browser. h

Since 2006, artist Theaster Gates has been acquiring and renovating otherwise abandoned structures on the 6900 block of Dorchester Avenue to reinvigorate the neighborhood including what has now become the Dorchester Project Library & Archive. The space is home to 14,000 art and architecture volumes from the former Prairie Avenue Book Store, 8,000 LPs from the former Dr. Wax Records, and 60,000 glass lantern slides from the University of Chicago Art History Department.

* Use a barcode-scanning app on your smart phone to access this map on the go!

by Deanna Isaacs

from the June 2, 2011 issue of the Chicago Reader

MIADbridge: Art + Public

n 2006 then-emerging artist Theaster Gates, looking to buy himself a home, came across a squat masonry building on the 6900 block of South Dorchester. The neighborhood had a dicey reputation, and the place wasn’t in great shape, but it was close to the University of Chicago, where Gates was hoping to land a job—and, in an overheated market, the price was within his budget. The building, which once had a candy store in the front and living quarters in the rear, looked like a good candidate for conversion to an artist’s live/work space. He snagged it for $130,000 and moved in.

“It was the first house I’d ever bought, and it had this beautiful tree in the backyard,” Gates, now 37, recalls. “Maybe I could have a studio in the front room, and life would be good. I’d work hard and pay it off one day, and have some babies, stuff like that.”

The reality was that for at least the first year, while he slept on a table, “it was a construction zone.” Working on the house at night and on weekends, using recycled materials, especially well-worn wood, he began transforming the compact interior—now a studio, kitchen, den, and two bedrooms with deck and garden in the back—into a blend of art, rehab architecture, and hand-built craft.

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By the time he was fully settled in three years later, both Gates’s career andarticle the neighborhood had The majority of this has changed in ways he couldn’t have anticipated: while been blocked out due to permissions. one soared, the other tanked.

To aread the rest article, visit: For Renaissance manof onthis a mission, Gates is a disarmingly low-key presence. Equipped with an eclectic http://www.chicagoreader.com/ academic background (one of his two master’s degrees chicago/theaster-gates-grandcombines urban planning, ceramics, and religion) and crossing-dorchester-projects/ some solid arts administration experience, he arrived Content?oid=3965188 at the University of Chicago at the perfect moment— just as the venerable, theory-bound institution began a push to establish itself as a vigorous practicing arts school. The most visible evidence of this effort is the towering $114 million Reva Riva and David Logan Center for Creative and Performing Arts, under construction on the Midway and slated to open in 2012.

Hired in 2007 as coordinator of arts programming for the Humanities Division, by 2009 Gates was artist in residence in the Department of Visual Art and had been bumped up to the provost’s office as director of arts program development for the entire campus. (Gates’s responsibilities at the U. of C. are growing still; come September he’ll be director of arts and public life.) At the same time, his artwork—which is grounded in the aesthetic reuse of humble materials— had expanded from ceramics to more explicitly social and political installations and performances that were turning him into an art-world rising star. He had solo shows in the works at venues including the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Milwaukee Art Museum, and a prized invitation to participate in the 2010 Whitney Biennial, put together that year by former MCA curator Francesco Bonami.

Chicago art dealer Kavi Gupta, with a gallery in Berlin and an international clientele, began representing Gates’s rapidly appreciating work. A selection of Gates’s pieces—including massive, expressionistic sculptures of shoe-shine thrones and a series of works incorporating fire hoses, sometimes rolled and framed

(In the Event of Race Riots 2011)—is on display at Gupta’s Chicago gallery, where a solo show is running through July 2.

These days, a Kohler sink modified by Gates goes for $18,000; a painted urn embellished with a brief poem is priced at $15,000. Gupta sold just about all of Gates’s work displayed at the recent Next show (held in conjunction with Art Chicago) and much of the work at the gallery show, mostly at prices ranging from $20,000 to more than $50,000.

It’s been a meteoric rise. The youngest and only son in a religious family of nine children, Gates grew up in East Garfield Park, helping in his father’s roofing business and singing in the choir (which he began leading at age 14) at the Baptist church the family attended.

After graduating from Lane Tech, he went to Iowa State University as an urban planning major and took a course in ceramics from Ingrid Lilligren that got him hooked on clay—and made him think he could be an artist. He studied religion in South Africa, sojourned in Japan, and earned the first of his two masters degrees. In 2000 he was hired as an arts planner for the CTA, then led by Valerie Jarrett. From there, he went to Little Black Pearl Art and Design Center as director of education and outreach, returning to Iowa State for the second master’s before joining the U. of C. Meanwhile, Gates went from throwing pots to mounting emotionally charged installations and performances, including multiple events based on a faux biographical story that gained some traction. The gist of it was that a master Japanese potter, Yamaguchi, had fled Hiroshima and landed in Mississippi, where he married a black woman, combined Japanese and black southern cultures, mentored Gates, and then died, leaving Gates to continue his mission of “fostering social transformation” by “convening dinners in cities with extreme racial and social tension just beneath well articulated geographical boundaries.” With former Wilco member LeRoy Bach, Gates formed an

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by Deanna Isaacs

from the June 2, 2011 issue of the Chicago Reader

experimental music ensemble, the Black Monks of Mississippi, making performance art out of a blend of Eastern chants, gospel, and the blues. And at the Milwaukee Art Museum and elsewhere, he channeled Dave Drake, an enslaved 19th-century South Carolina potter whose work—often embellished with his own poems—is now treasured by museums and collectors.

By 2010 Gates was a hot ticket on the museum circuit, with a schedule that included on-site projects or residencies at Artadia (New York), the Museum of Contemporary Craft (Portland), Wisconsin’s Kohler facility, the Milwaukee Art Museum, Houston’s Contemporary Arts Museum, and New York’s Armory Show as well as the Whitney. (A project with the Smart Museum, Feast: An Exhibition of Radical Hospitality, is scheduled for February 2012.)

But in the summer of 2009, while his career was thriving, his neighborhood had emptied out.

Renters using Section 8 housing vouchers were leaving the city for the suburbs in droves; landlords with empty buildings that were under water after the housing market collapsed stopped paying their mortgages; lenders foreclosed and prices continued to tank. The house next door to Gates—bigger than his and bustling with three tenant families when he moved in—was abandoned and bank-owned, and had been on the market for a year. When Gates bumped into the listing agent there, he inquired about the price. It was less than the cost of an ordinary new car, and way less than a year’s tuition at the University of Chicago. If you were a home owner on that block, it was gut-sinkingly low.

Gates revisited the decision he’d made to buy into the Grand Crossing neighborhood. He could have moved to a loft downtown, like everyone else. But, he says, “I was always making art that was asking questions about the city, and why the city functioned the way it did. How does cultural and economic disparity happen? How can we fight it? I was trying to present these questions in the form of little abandoned ceramic houses and drawings or performances that spoke to the issue. And I just got tired of pointing a finger at it and wanted to actually do something about it, challenge it in a real way.”

His block, less than a mile south of Hyde Park and “on the cusp” of South Shore, has seen both better and worse days, Gates says. “If the worst came because everybody who had been successful in the neighborhood left, what would happen if, as I did better, I decided to stay?”

Apartment galleries were popping up in places like Wicker Park and Pilsen, and Gates had already been casting his house as a place to “convene people.” In a flush of opportunity and vision—bolstered by what he says is a better exercised “belief muscle” than most people possess—he began to think he could transform the whole block “as a kind of artistic practice and cultural statement.” He bought the forlorn frame house next door for $16,000, planning to turn it into something the neighborhood could use, like a good soul food kitchen and dinner club.

The residential zoning squelched that idea and instead—after a major rehab—Gates’s extra house became a library and archive. That was convenient, since

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around the same time he purchased it, Gates also acquired 60,000 glass lantern slides from the U. of C.’s art history department, 14,000 books from Prairie Avenue Bookshop, which was closing, and the 8,000 LPs that the Dr. Wax record store still owned when it also shut down.

Last fall he bought another vacated foreclosure, an abused but handsome old multiunit brick building on the corner across the street, and an empty lot next door to his house, and the grand plan for what is now Dorchester Projects LLC began to take shape. The three buildings, with the addition of a food pavilion on the lot, would make up an arts compound including a potters’ studio and living quarters for a few artists in residence, and could, perhaps, transform the neighborhood.

This spring, with the support of a Propeller Fund grant and help from two staffers—Dara Epison, who works with Gates at the University of Chicago, and recent U. of C. grad Elly Fishman—Dorchester Projects launched a series of artists’ residencies, featuring public performances in Gates’s house promoted by word of mouth. (Jazz musician and composer David Boykin was the inaugural artist; DJ and record archivist Ayana Contreras is in residence now.)

Epison and Fishman have also been in residence, manning the ship while Gates sandwiched in a yearlong Loeb fellowship at Harvard, focusing on things like real estate law, finance, and nonprofit management. He also recently formed his own nonprofit, the Rebuild Foundation, and has begun to acquire property in blighted neighborhoods in other cities: several buildings in Saint Louis and one each in Detroit and Omaha, all to be converted into grassroots cultural use.

In late April, during his brief return to Chicago to appear on a panel with National Endowment for the Arts head Rocco Landesman, word came out that Gates and the Rebuild Foundation would also be part of a group acquiring a much bigger project: the Dante

Harper Townhomes, a shuttered 36-unit CHA property a couple of blocks from Gates’s home. The plan: redevelopment into mixed-income housing for people with an interest in the arts.

That announcement turned out to be premature.

Late last month, on the phone from San Francisco, where he was designing sets and rehearsing for an upcoming tour of Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s multimedia eco show red, black and GREEN, Gates said his group is “having a conversation with the CHA”—and that the agency has indicated interest in their proposal.

If they get the project, it will likely work like this: the city will hand over the units, along with financial support (perhaps in the form of tax credits) to help pay for a gut rehab. Gates’s partners, Northbrook-based Brinshore Development, will also be paid by CHA to manage the completed project, which the partnership will eventually own.

It’s all of a piece, Gates says. “A big part of my art practice has been creatively investigating what happens in neighborhoods. That also includes playing in the real market, not just gesturing at it. We’re at a moment where the interventions that artists make are not just in museums and galleries.”

But it’s a work in progress, he says: “I’m at the beginning of asking questions about what else the black south side can be.” h

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by Deanna Isaacs

from the June 2, 2011 issue of the Chicago Reader

MIADbridge: Art + Public

And He Kept

by Ashley Janke

artist and gallerist from Milwaukee, WI

and he kept looking when i told him to stop when i said it would kill him he kept looking and looks turned to stares until his eyes became blank and stopped living just as i said and he kept staring and he kept staring and he kept staring and he kept and he kept the blankness most turn away from away from everything we look away from as nothing as we listen to a stadium of people when individual voices with much to say become one sound saying nothing but blankness he glanced the blankness when he stopped looking at his neighbors and stared at the rest and couldn’t look away because he couldn’t see it all and he kept looking

until all became one and all became none he looked until he saw nothing and stared at nothing until he was nothing himself and he stares at nothing at all that is far away and i look at him because he is close and if i look hard enough maybe he will remember to look close too maybe one day his blankness will turn into something again more than nothing if i look hard enough

and i am not asking you to believe in maybes in him or in me saying his maybes but to believe in those around you those close because together we are something and the overlapping somethings are what make up the nothings and if we can make our nothings something by being close with those close we can turn the nothing into something because we believe it to be because we believe in each other h

please because his is something i think something much more than nothing and could maybe be something more than most something and don’t think i don’t know maybes are maybes and somedays are just days as well but days not now and not yet and are nothing still but if we can’t believe in the closest to us we might as well be nothing too

Table of Contents Letter from the Editor

2

Step Back and Look at the World

3

If No One Hates It, No One Loves It

8

In Action: An Overview of Creative Work in the Midwest

18

The House that Theaster Gates Built

20

And He Kept by Ashley Janke

23

Isabel Kent gives an inspired account of contemporary empathy by exploring the workings of the mind in a modern context.

What can be done to address the problems we find in our local environments?

An insightful one-on-one interview with the founder and executive director of the Heidelberg Project, Tyree Guyton and Jenenne Whitfield, about the celebrated outdoor art environment, the current state of affairs in Detroit, and new frontiers.

Chicago-based artist and community developer Theaster Gates is breaking new ground in his neighborhood under the umbrella of the Dorchester Projects.

Through the transformation of buildings on the 6900 block of Dorchester Avenue, Theaster is developing new ways to influence his community at large.

Contributors + Special Thanks: Chicago Reader, local publication from Chicago, IL Theaster Gates, artist + founder of the Dorchester Projects in Chicago, IL

Christiane Grauert, instructor from Milwaukee, WI Tyree Guyton, artist + founder of The Heidelberg Project in Detroit, MI

Deanna Isaacs, writer from Chicago, IL Ashley Janke, artist + gallerist from Milwaukee, WI Sandra Leidecker, illustrator from Berlin Isabel Kent, artist + writer from Milwaukee, WI Jason Smith, photographer from Chicago, IL Shawn Simmons, instructor from Milwaukee, WI Jenenne Whitfield, executive director of The Heidelberg Project in Detroit, MI

www.RoadsideArchitecture.com

“When one buys some my artwork, I hope it is because they wish to learn from it and not because they think it will match their drapes!” – Christian Cardell Corbet

Table of Contents Letter from the Editor

2

Step Back and Look at the World

3

If No One Hates It, No One Loves It

8

In Action: An Overview of Creative Work in the Midwest

18

The House that Theaster Gates Built

20

And He Kept by Ashley Janke

23

Isabel Kent gives an inspired account of contemporary empathy by exploring the workings of the mind in a modern context.

What can be done to address the problems we find in our local environments?

An insightful one-on-one interview with the founder and executive director of the Heidelberg Project, Tyree Guyton and Jenenne Whitfield, about the celebrated outdoor art environment, the current state of affairs in Detroit, and new frontiers.

Chicago-based artist and community developer Theaster Gates is breaking new ground in his neighborhood under the umbrella of the Dorchester Projects.

Through the transformation of buildings on the 6900 block of Dorchester Avenue, Theaster is developing new ways to influence his community at large.