Detroit est une ville américaine qui a été gravement touchée par la crise. Avec cette série « Now and Then », Detroiturbex a repris des images du Cass Technical High School abandonné et délabré puis a incrusté de vieux clichés pris au même endroit pendant les années fastes de l’établissement aujourd’hui démoli.
Dans le même esprit : Dear Photograph
Per aumentare la consapevolezza delle sfide sociali ed economiche della città di Detroit, il sito Detroiturbex esplora e fotografa edifici abbandonati e luoghi dentro e intorno alla città. Uno dei suoi progetti più recenti si concentra sulla scuola Lewis Cass Technical High, che ha avuto il suo edificio devastato da un grande incendio nel 2007. Grazie alla combo di vecchie fotografie della scuola con nuove visioni del edificio abbandonato, ci offre uno sguardo del prima e del dopo. Impressionante.
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Amongst the expanses of desperate homes and floundering businesses the media has repeatedly brought to light, a lone two towers and low lying complex of townhouses stands in downtown Detroit. Lafayette Park, as it’s called, comprises the largest collection of buildings designed by legendary minimalist Ludwig Mies van der…
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The prolific musician sheds light on his new album Beams and his days in Detroit
The life of Matthew Dear is anything but black and white. Originally from Texas, the multi-faceted artist cut his teeth in the music world while studying at the University of Michigan—where he also co-founded record label Ghostly International with his pal Sam Valenti—and today calls a barn in upstate…
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The brand plans a relaunch in Detroit with watches, bikes, cola and notebooks
Taking a name that’s likely recognizable among the last few generations, Detroit-based consumer goods company Shinola is hoping to make it easy to tell shit from Shinola. First imagined in Dallas a few short years ago, the relaunch of the more-than-100-year-old company recently made the move to a 60,000 square foot space in Detroit’s midtown neighborhood. Drawn in by a city with open arms and a rich history of manufacturing, Shinola felt that Motor City was the best place to stage its comeback for Fall 2012.
Interested in exploring Shinola’s curiously focused range of “consumer goods”—the brand originally known for shoe polish is now creating watches, leather goods, notebooks and cola—we accepted an invite to check out the brand in Detroit. Shinola ambitiously plans to make each of these products right here in the U.S. whenever possible.
In order to realize the best possible execution with domestic production, Shinola has placed collaboration at the core of its business and design strategy. Housed on the fifth floor of what was formerly home to General Motor’s engineering, research and design department—the first designated department of its kind in the auto industry, one responsible for inventing the automatic transmission engine, introducing tail fins, and even designing the first Corvette—Shinola has taken over the space with the intention of building on that legacy of creative innovation. Built in 1928 across the street from the original GM headquarters, the massive building is now the run by Detroit’s College of Creative Studies.
While the building occupies a certain sense of historic importance, CCS’ students and their forward-thinking design talent are also of interest to Shinola, which has enlisted their help in everything from designing their office to assisting in product development as part of their curriculum. “At a very fundamental level CCS and Shinola honor the same philosophies,” says Shinola creative director Daniel Caudill. “They honor the idea of the artisan and craftsman, and our relationship with the CCS students illustrates our core brand pillar of collaboration.”
The brand kicks off its collaborative product line with watches. The substantial inaugural line comprises models assembled entirely on-site in a surprisingly large “clean room” of sorts. The pressurized room—to keep dust out—will eventually be the workspace for dozens of assembly line workers, pumping out hundreds of watches each day. At the moment, with the company still very much in the development stages, the output stands at just a fraction of that goal. Nevertheless the workers currently assembling prototypes and early production editions are intricately skilled and closely supervised to ensure precision assembly. Certified by the US government to claim the distinction of being American-made, Shinola watches are being made with the help of the 65-year-old Swiss manufacturing company Ronda AG with Swiss-made movements, locally sourced components and some pieces imported from China.
Much like their watches, the small range of bicycles are produced elsewhere and assembled in Detroit. Once the Wisconsin-made frames are outfitted with additional top-of-the-line components (like Shimano’s Alfine group) sourced from Portland, OR and abroad, each bike is topped off with custom Horween leather saddles, matching leather grips and a shiny Shinola headbadge.
Operating as a “community of consumer products” as Caudill puts it, Shinola sidesteps the typical platform of scheduled seasonal launches and design deadlines. “Instead we’re opting to develop and release product when it’s ready, fine-tuning and tweaking the product until we feel it is perfect,” he says. This unconventional but logical approach stems from a dedication to producing good design with the customer in mind, running with the spirit of making products intended to last a lifetime.
The commitment to sourcing components domestically whenever possible inevitably comes with a higher price point on Shinola goods. Their handmade bicycles will sell for roughly $2,500 while the larger range of watches will go for between $400-$800. As Caudill points out, the definite launch date has not been confirmed, though e-commerce is tentatively slated for Fall 2012. Also in the works is a showroom to open sometime close to December in NYC’s Tribeca neighborhood, which will then transition into a stand-alone retail space in early 2013.
For more information on the history and mission behind Shinola see their site and for more from their expansive Detroit HQ click the slideshow.
Images by Graham Hiemstra
Alternative approaches to the letterpress arts
Based out Detroit’s “Ponyride” studios, Brian Christopher Baker and his company, Stukenborg Press, are at the forefront of the ongoing letterpress resurgence. His prints embrace non-traditional materials—specifically, geometrical arrangements of dice that he uses to create intricate patterns. As a contract for The New York Times Magazine, Baker blanketed the publication’s iconic gothic “T” with a layer of red 5s and 2s. We recently toured Baker’s studio courtesy of the Re:View Gallery and Buick to learn about Stukenborg and the world of letterpress design.
Baker’s penchant for unexpected type materials doesn’t stop at dice. He admits that students of his “Alternatives to Type” class have pressed everything from bunion cushions to foodstuffs. “If you can get it stuck down and type high, you can make a small edition of anything,” explains Baker. This open-ended approach gives his creations new level of complexity that goes beyond typical letterpress prints.
The result of years collecting type from various resources, the designer’s collection of type wraps around his studio in trays upon trays of metal and woodblock sets. His main machine was salvaged from the basement of Manhattan’s National Academy of Art. “The janitor said it had been down there for 25 years,” explains Baker. “It’s a champ machine. It took me about three months to get it up and running because it was caked with all kinds of weird stuff.”
For unavailable materials, Baker also sources type from a nearby foundry, and he admits that CNC machining and laser etching have created entirely new opportunities for letterpress designers. The fusion of materials and know-how becomes apparent when Baker pulls a print—the thunderous roll and cracking of colliding pieces demonstrating the nostalgic appeal of the letterpress process.
Contemplating on the state of contemporary letterpress, Baker says, “It’s definitely a defunct form of production, but there are a lot of folks doing it—although it’s small enough that everyone knows each other.” While most letterpress production in recent years has stuck to simple stationery, Baker’s multi-layered poster prints show the true potential of the genre.
Prints by Stukenborg Press can be found at their Etsy shop. See more images of the studio in our slideshow
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Images by James Thorne
Phenomenological art from a Detroit native
Discovered on our recent trip to Re:view Gallery in Detroit, Greg Fadell is an abstract artist hell-bent on taking messaging out of art. His massive grayscale aesthetic channels the rawness of abstraction and makes for a piece that is nothing if not experiential. The brother of Tony Fadell—former iPod designer and inventor of the Nest Learning Thermostat—Greg Fadell seems to share his brother’s desire to innovate and change. We recently caught up with Fadell in his Detroit studio, situated in an old public school building that has been converted—in that patently Detroit sort of way—into a movie theater, Montessori school and studio space.
The concept for Fadell’s current series, “Nothing”, came during a Parisian sojourn. Walking down the street, he came across a building undergoing renovation. The windows had been whitewashed for protection, and Fadell became obsessed with the spectral quality of the material. With his elementary command of French, he was able to ask the owner, “Qu’est-ce que c’est le blanc?” or “What is the white?”
Fadell went on to buy the substance, a fine powder, and develop his own paint using polymers and an acrylic base. Applying the paint with homemade brushes, Fadell quickly realized that the paintings lost depth from layering day after day. “I have to work wet, so once I start I cant stop,” he explains. With nearly two gallons of paint used for each work, it’s surprising that the works dry perfectly flat. The difference between white-on-black and black-on-white pieces is vast—white produces a cold color temperature while black is notably warmer.
The result of his effort is a painting that has a great degree of perceived depth, yet on close inspection appears to be a digital print. The sharpness disappears and the lines becomes noisy and indistinct. The effect is so convincing that a New York gallerist once accused Fadell of photoshopping his work. Her mind was changed when the piece was reversed and the paint-covered edges could be seen through the floating frame. Following this, Fadell learned the importance of showing his hand, and now exhibits the series unframed.
There is a lot of theory behind Fadell’s work, mostly surrounding the phenomenological notion of art as experiential and viewer-informed. This makes the work essentially irreproducible online, where the enveloping effect of his floor-to-cieling works is lost. Fadell is adamantly opposed to cleverness, and the title “Nothing” is more of an invitation to viewers rather than an artist’s statement. “There’s all this issue art,” says Fadell. “I have enough issues. I don’t need to create any more. I wanted to create something that allowed the viewer to bring their own impressions to it.”
An artist like Fadell is a rare phenomenon in the art world. Painters are increasingly a dying breed as concept art moves from the fringe into the mainstream. Mostly, his point of differentiation goes back to his years of skateboarding before skate culture had developed. Back when the sport was new, Fadell explains that there was nothing preset, no sense of what he was doing or why. “It’s like detroit,” he says. “I saw opportunity and potential in skateboarding.” That spirit eeks into his works, which have a spirit and energy that extend outside of time and place.
Gary Panter and Joshua White tune you in and trip you out with an array of mind-bending works
Meeting Joshua White and Gary Panter is like stepping back in time. Not because White is responsible for creating the Joshua Light Show—the beautifully psychedelic backdrop that entertained thousands at Fillmore East concerts for Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, The Who and more in the 1960s—but because they continue designing experiences with the same childlike nature they likely possessed as creative young kids decades ago. This skillful, ingenuous approach is evident in their retrospective-like exhibition currently on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, where Panter’s playfully simple illustrations and hypnotic graphics glow under White’s tightly orchestrated theater lights.
While kindred in spirit, the two are actually from slightly different eras. Panter neatly sums it up when he says, “Free love didn’t happen to me.” White began synthesizing music and lights in the late ’60s, making a name for himself among the rock ‘n’ roll crowd in New York shortly after graduating from USC. Panter, who grew up in Texas, read about the Joshua Light Show in magazines at his local drug store. A trained painter and genuine magpie, after graduating college Panter moved to New York and began hosting small shows at record shops in Williamsburg, where he would wiggle a flashlight behind a shiny piece of film while making weird noises with abandoned beat boxes. White saw one of these shows, thought he could help Panter streamline his production, and their friendship and working relationship began.
We recently visited Panter’s studio, an airy space on the top floor of his Brooklyn home, filled with random shiny objects, stacks of records, acrylic paintings, sculptural mobiles and around 200 sketchbooks. The duo calls much of this miscellany “light show potential”—things that can be thrown in the mix to modify the already trippy liquid light show. At its foundation, the spectacle’s lava lamp quality is as simple as colored water and colored oil continuously moving around on top of an overhead projector.
As the MoCAD show demonstrates, their approach has expanded in concept and size over the years, but really only in a sense of refinement. The DIY vibe still lingers, evident in the shoebox mockup, sketches and sculptural models Panter created for the exhibition. The fun house effect Panter lends the show is likely a nod to his days working on the sets of Pee Wee’s Playhouse, which now provides the perfect environment for White’s immersive light show installation at the museum. Whether in a slightly more static setting like the Detroit exhibition or in their performative light shows that reflect the music playing at the moment, White and Panter’s work always stems from their art first.
Their candid analog style isn’t without any digital elements—they often distort computer-generated imagery in their light show performances—but you definitely won’t catch them doing a laser light show. “I have two problems with lasers,” White explains. “One is that it is a very strange repurposing of something that is so magnificently pure. And the other thing is the colors—well it’s not a rich palette. Kind of cold.” Instead they employ a “less is more” approach to their work, which keeps the shows from becoming what White calls “too soupy or too speedy” while allowing the audience’s minds to wander. “We have people coming up to us going ‘were there camels carrying giant bears?’ or something, and we always say ‘You saw that? Good for you!'” They toy with synesthesia, giving freedom to the people watching to interpret the visuals how they like.
Together they continue to put on performative light shows, working with bands whose musical style closely matches their own experimental nature. Separately they both work on personal projects, and soon Panter will begin a residency at the Cullman Center at the New York Public Library, which is funding the third installment and paradise version of his Divine Comedy graphic novels. Panter painstakingly dipped a chopstick in ink to draw the first two intricately detailed books, “Jimbo in Purgatory” and “Jimbo’s Inferno”.
The most obvious realization that comes across after spending any amount of time with White and Panter is that they are both highly intelligent and their work is a distillation of their hyperactive minds. Their ability to funnel ideas into various artistic forms speaks to their innate creative talents, and the results are entertaining as well as enlightening.
“Joshua White and Gary Panter’s Light Show” is currently on view at MoCAD through 29 April 2012. Panter shows his fine art work at Fredericks & Freiser gallery in NYC and performs with his band, Devin Gary & Ross at venues around Bushwick in Brooklyn.
Photos of Panter’s studio shot by Charis Kirchheimer. See more images in the slideshow.
Upscale design lines, advanced technology and unmatched fuel economy in an all new sedan
You can’t help but notice the 2013 Ford Fusion, a midsize category-busting car hell-bent on improving suburban driveways around the world. The new Fusion is the first car that very clearly articulates the ONE Ford mantra (cars designed for a global market) and the company’s Kinetic design language (which debuted on the Evos concept car launched in Fall 2011 in Frankfurt).
Ford sold Aston Martin (in 2007) and Jaguar (in 2008) along with the other brands in their Premier Automotive Group. Perhaps the best thing the come out of that experience was the importance of design and how it can elevate a very expensive hand made car as well as a car you’ll find all over your neighborhood and in the parking lot at every mall. There was no shortage of comments at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit yesterday that the new Fusion looked “Aston-like” or “Jaguar-like,” things you don’t usually hear about the most crowded and pedestrian segment of the automobile market. Part of this may be attributed to the raised hexagonal grill, narrow lights and rear license plate surround, which Ford’s VP of Global Design and Chief Creative Officer J Mays says “create a terrific stance.” Sexing up the midsize market is good for Ford, and good for all customers who seek to be inspired by design regardless of price point.
The Fusion brings a new level of features to an inexpensive, accessible car—or, as Mays puts it, “a car you are proud to drive.” Standard features include Ford’s Sync voice-activated control system and a lane drifting warning system. Options include blind-spot warning and automated parallel parking systems—things you’re more likely to see on high end luxury cars.
Ford offers the extremely fuel efficient Fusion in five different four cylinder engines—an existing gasoline engine, two new EcoBoost turbo engines, a hybrid and plug-in hybrid. Mays elaborates, “the mpg on this car is truly spectacular—26 mpg on the standard model, 47 mpg on the EcoBoost Hybrid, and 100 mpge on the Energi model. It’s just game changing.”
From what we’ve seen so far, Ford has come together to achieve something their competitors have failed to do—create an economy car that is desirable, practical, and affordable. I’m looking forward to road testing it.
The 2013 Ford Fusion will be available in the U.S. mid-2012 (with all models available by Fall 2012), and will be available in Asia and Europe as the Mondeo in 2013.
A resurrection of the 90s staple promises to redefine the brand
Unveiled today at NAIAS in Detroit is the new Acura NSX Concept, a supercar slated for sale in 2014. Sporting a 400 hp engine with a hybrid SH-AWD drivetrain, the sexed-up model is meant to combine green ideology with hedonistic performance. The current NSX is a revival of the suspended version that first established Acura in the luxury scene during the ’90s. Though the original enjoyed pop culture appearances galore, the line faltered in the early 2000s. The brand has long struggled with sales of recent models, but the NSX seems poised to put Acura back on the map.
The release of a high-performance model has been long in the making, with plans for an even more powerful V10 NSX abandoned as a result of the recession. The current version includes a direct-injected V6, dual clutch transmission and electric motor that work in conjunction for impressive acceleration and efficiency. For cornering ability, the new model uses a Bilateral Torque Adjustable Control System to create positive or negative torque on the front wheels. The rare combination of environmental considerations and next-generation performance aims to anticipate a shift in the expectations of a supercar.
Many details remain to be seen regarding the final product. The materials used for the lightweight body weren’t specified, and performance specs including fuel economy and acceleration haven’t been released. The NSX is set to be manufactured in Ohio, a move that will hopefully breath some new life into the perpetually troubled American auto industry. This is the sort of brand revival that can potentially be a major game changer within the industry, so we’re anxious to see where Acura takes it from here.
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