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UPCOMING EVENTS / PAST EVENTS

MOCAD hosts musical, literary, and artistic events throughout the year. Check back often or contact us at info@mocadetroit.org if you would like to be kept up to date on upcoming events.


MOCAD VIDEOS
2011: SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER
2011: FEBRUARY-JULY
2010: SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER
2010: FEBRUARY - JULY
2009: SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER
2009: FEBRUARY - JULY
2008: JULY - DECEMBER
2008: JANUARY - JUNE
2007: JULY - DECEMBER
2007: JANUARY - JUNE
2006: OCTOBER - DECEMBER
 
Sunday, December 30 from 1-3 pm
"FUN WITH WORDS"
KIDS CRAFT & ACTIVITY DAY


Parents can enjoy a free cup of coffee from MOCAD's brand new café while kids craft away and enjoy the music. Kids can create their own buttons, magnets and work booklets that include word games, collage space and questions to connect kids with the current exhibition WORDS FAIL ME and help them explore the relationship between language and art. This event is free and open to the public. All materials are provided. Please call ahead for large groups.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) invites kids of all ages (that includes parents too) to pick up a glue stick, some coloring markers, and create your own holiday gifts while indulging your creative impulses Sunday, December 30, 1-3pm for our monthly KIDS CRAFT & ACTIVITY DAY.
 
 
Sunday, December 16 at 3 pm
LITERATURE READING: TERRY BLACKHAWK, DANIEL PADILLA AND TYREE GUYTON WITH JENENNE WHITFIELD
Brought to you by MOCAD, Marick Press & Wayne State University Press


Marick Press, MOCAD, and WSU Press are building on their successful individual readings to form a collaborative reading highlighting local writers and literary artists. This collaboration is extended to all small presses in the area. Come and support small presses and their authors, artists and musicians at MOCAD!

Writers will have books available for signing. Refreshments will be provided.

 
 
Sunday, December 16 from 1-3 pm
THE SISTERS LUCAS
At The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit
"FUN WITH WORDS"
KIDS CRAFT & ACTIVITY DAY

Every Third Sunday

Parents can enjoy a free cup of coffee from MOCAD's brand new café while kids craft away and enjoy the music. Kids can create their own buttons, magnets and work booklets that include word games, collage space and questions to connect kids with the current exhibition WORDS FAIL ME and help them explore the relationship between language and art. This event is free and open to the public. All materials are provided. Please call ahead for large groups.

The December 16th Kids Craft & Activity Day will feature live music by The Sisters Lucas. Leaving behind her Larkspurs, and joined by sister Julie, Loretta Lucas continues on down the path laid before her by the likes of Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Cat Power's Chan Marshall, and Miss Polly Jean Harvey. Combing wistful pop, with a bare bones countrified sensibility, to create a a blissful hybrid sure to please kids and adults alike.

Watch a video of the Sisters Lucas.

Visit the Sisters Lucas at Myspace.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) invites kids of all ages (that includes parents too) to pick up a glue stick, some coloring markers, and create your own holiday gifts while indulging your creative impulses Sunday, December 16, 1-3pm for our monthly KIDS CRAFT & ACTIVITY DAY.

Top: Two museum visitors in front of a Jennifer West film. Middle and Bottom: the Sisters Lucas (Loretta and Julie).
 
Friday, December 14 at 8 pm
MOCAD and the Crofoot are proud to present
MUSIC: RRIICCEE
FEATURING; VINCENT GALLO / ERIC ERLANDSON / REBECCA CASABIAN / NIKOLAS HAAS
all ages
$15

Tickets are available in advance through the Crofoot.

Vincent Gallo (born Buffalo, NY on April 11th, 1962) and Eric Erlandson (born Los Angeles, CA on January 9th, 1963) have formed a new musical project, RRIICCEE. Gallo, a movie actor, filmmaker and musician, is the critically acclaimed writer and director of such films like Buffalo 66 and The Brown Bunny. He has released two solo albums on the British recording label, Warp Records, and also collaborated with the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat in the New York no-wave musical group Gray. Erlandson is the former guitarist and founding member of the rock band Hole, along with Courtney Love. The band released three albums including their 1994 commercial breakthrough, Live Through This. RRIICCEE will embark on their debut national tour in December.

RRIICCEE is a spontaneous collective between the two musicians (with the potential of additional members) and exhibits the creation of composition within a live performance. For all appearances, the outfit does not perform pre-written music and is not limited to the boundaries of one specific musical genre. At the present time, RRIICCEE has no recorded music and has no plans on recording a commercial release.

Gallo offered, "Improvisation is not a good word for what we're doing. It's more a gesture of composing and performing at the same time, always hoping to avoid musical cliché or jamming. We've chosen not to go into a studio in a traditional way like other bands have done in the past: to make recordings, cut them up, dub on them, fine tune and mix them, and then release them as an album, then later, go on tour, pantomiming those recordings over and over each night as a form of cabaret. Instead, for a long time now, we've chosen to remain open, to grow and change more naturally, and when we play live, the music is often created during the performance. If we choose to record a performance, the recording itself is only evidence of that creative moment. The purpose of recording then, is to listen back for enjoyment."

RRIICCEE have previously performed at the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan as well as a performance in San Francisco in 2007.

For more info go to Vincent Gallo's website.

 
 
Friday, December 7
MUSIC AT MOCAD:
TONY CONRAD WITH M.V. CARBON (10 PM)
WINDY & CARL (9 PM)
WOLF EYES (11 PM)
8 pm doors, all ages
$16 admission
Tony Conrad will perform live in collaboration with M.V. Carbon (formerly of Chicago's Metalux) along with internationally acclaimed, Dearborn-based, ambient "space rock" minimalists, Windy & Carl, and Detroit/Ann Arbor-based, international compositional-noise-rock icons Wolf Eyes.


Saturday, December 8 at 7 pm
TONY CONRAD FILMS AND DISCUSSION
2.5 hour program
$9 admission
Tony Conrad will screen and discuss a 2.5-hour retrospective program of his films.


December 7 & 8
A WEEKEND WITH TONY CONRAD
$23 advance tickets available for Friday & Saturday available through December 6
$23 advance tickets are for sale here (throuth Paypal), at the MOCAD bookstore, and at Stormy Records (Dearborn) through December 6. Individual tickets will be for sale at the door on the nights of the events. Online sales are will call only.


TONY CONRAD (b. 1941) is the quintessential cult figure; resident outsider; rebel angel; TonyConrad's got the kind of immaculate credibility that can't be bought and can't be sold -- and how else, otherwise, could he have persevered? Rumbling under the cultural radar since the Kennedy Era, Conrad is at once first cause and last laugh, a covert operative who can stand as a primary influence over succeeding generations.

At the core of Conrad's legend is his work as a violinist, in which primal, enveloping drones create an oscillating ritual theater. In 1962 he co-founded the groundbreaking ensemble known as the Dream Syndicate. Wielding a drone both aggressively confrontational and subtly mesmerizing, he and his collaborators -- including La Monte Young and future Velvet Underground co-founders John Cale and Angus MacLise -- created some of the most revolutionary music of that -- or any -- decade. Utilizing long durations, precise pitch and blistering volume, Conrad and co. forged a "Dream Music" that articulated the Big Bang of "minimalism." However, the many rehearsal and performance tapes from this period were repressed by Young, becoming the stuff of legend.

Following the dissolution of the group in 1966, Conrad played a pivotal role in the formation of the Velvet Underground, then refocused his efforts on experimental film and video, including his 1966 masterwork The Flicker, considered the cornerstone of the Structural Cinema movement. Musically, he resurfaced only briefly, to jam with German krautrock progenitors Faust on the 1972 LP Outside the Dream Syndicate, a work of explosive prophecy that to this day retains an undiminished power to startle and excite.

The present decade has seen a series of releases that confirm Conrad's indefatigable creative legacy. These include field recordings, piano compositions, film soundtracks, and electronic compositions, as well as his documentation of early, seminal efforts by John Cale and the late filmmaker and performance artist Jack Smith. Taken together, these comprise a remarkable body of work, and celebrate the wild breadth of a spectacular 40-year career.

"Tony Conrad is a pioneer, as seminal in his way to American music as Johnny Cash or Captain Beefheart or Ornette Coleman, one of those really savvy old guys whom all the kids want to emulate because their ideas, their style are electric and new and somehow indivisible."
- Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Conrad invents a new musical language ... unbearably intense and gloriously ecstatic."
- The Wire

Visit Tony Conrad's website: http://www.tonyconrad.net/songs.htm

Tony Conrad on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/slappingpythagoras

Watch Tony Conrad live videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yCHstLAChs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_PgecNNKcY

Top to bottom: Images from tonyconrad.net, Tony Conrad (photo by Bettina Herzner), Windy & Carl (left) and Wolf Eyes (right).
 
Saturday, December 1 at 6 and 8pm
MUSIC AT MOCAD: NOEL NIGHT
AMERICAN MARS


Detroit alt-country act American Mars performs two free sets on MOCAD's second Noel Night. Featuring members of Blanche, and Saturday Looks Good To Me, American Mars' cool, lyrical indie-rock has garnered them critical praise and slots with other similarly informed purveyors of breezy Americana, like Bright Eyes, and Richard Buckner.

Visit American Mars website: http://www.americanmars.com/

listen to and watch videos by American Mars: http://www.americanmars.com/site/media/

American Mars will be performing at MOCAD as part of the 35th Annual NOEL NIGHT, which will be held on Saturday, December 1, 2007, 5:00pm - 9:30pm in Midtown. This special community event attracts more than 25,000 metro Detroit adults and children to sample the attractions of our university/cultural center neighborhood, while enjoying the sights, sounds and tastes of holiday and seasonal traditions.

Over 20 institutions, including the Detroit Institute of Arts, the New Detroit Science Center, and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History open their doors to the public free of charge during this Cultural Center-wide holiday "open house." Activities include horse-drawn carriage rides, holiday shopping, family craft activities and performances by over 50 area music and dance groups. The evening's festivities culminate with a community sing-along on Woodward Avenue led by the Salvation Army Band - a long-standing Noel Night tradition.

Noel Night activities take place in and around Midtown Detroit's Cultural Center institutions, primarily between Cass and John R and Kirby and Willis. Free shuttle service is offered between participating venues. Convenient parking is available in area lots.

Noel Night is produced by the University Cultural Center Association, a non-profit community development organization supporting economic growth in Detroit's Midtown district. Call 313-577-5088 or visit www.detroitmidtown.com for additional information.
American Mars (top) will perform at MOCAD for the 35th annual Noel Night.
 
Wednesday, November 21
THANKSGIVING AT MOCAD:
MAGAS with
GOUDRON & PERSPECTS

$9 admission
8 pm doors, 9 pm showtime
All ages

James Marlon Magas has become a Midwestern superstar for bringing primal, progressive sounds to the world through his previous bands Couch (featuring future Wolf Eyes member Aaron Dilloway), Lake of Dracula, his Many Moods of Marlon Magas, and as co-founder of seminal 90's noise rock label Bulb records. Now, simply known as MAGAS, he builds from his history with harsh no-wave punk, creating his own his own darkly eccentric, electronic music, tinged with shades of dirty Detroit Ghetto-tech, early electro and booty music. Having, in the past, worked producing and releasing records with Adult. on their Ersatz Audio imprint, Magas has now produced and released his own record "May I Meet My Accuser" which "showcases a rougher, more rough hewn sound" focusing on the "thunderous roar of an old ARP [to create] a new style of electronic motor-punk."

Visit MAGAS's website

MAGAS on myspace

MAGAS on ersatz audio's discography page

Listen to Magas' "Transgressors" off of his "May I meet My Accuser" LP

Also performing will be Detroit artist-musician, circuit bender, dance floor shaker, and former Ersatz Audio recording artist, Ron Zakrin, as Goudron. Along with Artist, msucian and former member of Ersatz Audio's Le Car duo, Ian Clark will open the evening, performing a live set utilizing electronics, drums and voice, as Perspects.

Listen to an MP3 of "Art School Fuckheads" by Goudron (off of his Ersatz Audio album Raw Voltage)

Listen to Goudron on Ersatz Audio website

Goudron on Interdimensional Transmissions records website

Goudron on myspace

Listen to an MP3 of "Character Map (remix)" by Perspects

Perspects on MySpace

Perspects at Interdimensional Transmissions site

Top: MAGAS, Middle: Goudron, Bottom: Perspects
 
Sunday, November 18 at 3 pm
LITERATURE READING: MELBA JOYCE BOYD, JUDITH KERMAN AND JACK RIDL
Brought to you by MOCAD, Marick Press & Wayne State University Press


Marick Press, MOCAD, and WSU Press are building on their successful individualæreadings to form a collaborative reading highlighting local writers and literary artists. This collaboration is extended to all small presses in the area. Come and support small presses and their authors, artists and musicians at MOCAD!

Writers will have books available for signing. Refreshments will be provided.

 
 
Sunday, November 18 from 1-3 pm
"FUN WITH WORDS"
KIDS CRAFT & ACTIVITY DAY


The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) invites kids of all ages (that includes parents too) to pick up a glue stick, some coloring markers, and get ready to let your creative impulses take over every third Sunday of the month for our monthly KIDS CRAFT & ACTIVITY DAY.

As part of the 2007 fall programming, MOCAD presents a monthly children's workshop to engage specifically with the theme of the current exhibition Words Fail Me. Participants can create their own buttons, magnets and booklets that include a variety of word games and questions to connect kids with the artwork on view by exploring links between art and language. This event is free and open to the public. All materials are provided. Please call ahead for large groups.

 
 
Saturday, November 17
URBAN ORGANIC FESTIVAL '07
Films, Live Music, Workshop
More information and tickets available at www.urban-organic.net

SEMINAR
"How to Make Money as an Independent?"

11 am - 12:30 pm
Free for artists with published CD
Non-Artists - $10.00

Hosted by Jodine Dorce, of Jodinescorner.com

Tonya Byrd Wilson, Sirius Radio; Kevin Harewood, Edclectic Entertainment, Fiona Bloom, The Bloom Effect, Korie Enyard, Gypsy People Music

Participants learn about publishing, song writing, marketing, promotions, retail activation, and more.


FILMS
Urban Organic Film Sessions at MOCAD
11:30pm to 5:00pm
$10/film or $20/3 films

There's No Such Thing as Neo Soul
Running Time: 61 Minutes
11:30AM

Movie filmed at various performance venues throughout 2003, "No Such Thing As Neo-soul" provides viewers with a deeper appreciation of factors that have led the City of Brotherly Love to a significant position in the world music scene, thanks to its contributions to what is commonly referred to as Neo-soul. Discussion Following Film with Filmmaker Stephanie Renee

High Tech Soul
Running Time: 64 Minutes
1:05PM

The first documentary to tackle the deep roots of techno music, alongside the cultural history of its birthplace, Detroit. From the race riots of 1967 to the underground party scene of the late 1980s, Detroit's economic downturn didn't stop the invention of a new kind of music that brought international attention to its producers and their hometown. Discussion Following Film

Before The Music Dies
Running Time: 95 Minutes
2:40PM

Narrated by Academy Awardå Winner Forest Whitaker, BEFORE THE MUSIC DIES is an unsettling and inspiring look at today's popular music industry featuring interviews and performances by Erykah Badu, Eric Clapton, Dave Matthews, Branford Marsalis, Questlove and a wide variety of others.
Discussion Following Film


LIVE MUSIC
The Urban Organic Experience: Everybody Loves the Sunshine

Doors Open 7pm; Performances 8 pm š 12 am
$20.00 tickets are available until November 1st
Tickets are $20-$50
Tickets Available at Urban-Organic.net

Hosted by Amp Fiddler
Featuring Roy Ayers, Anthony David, Monica Blaire, Suai, Alison Crockett, Jon Bibbs, John Arnold, Cel, Melissa Young, Kloud 9, and others


Internationally renowned recording artists, Roy Ayers, will perform at the Urban Organic Festival on Nov. 17th at the Museum of Contemporary Arts of Detroit.

Possessing an extensive musical repertoire, Ayers has delivered jazz/funk, R&B, Afro-pop and disco; contributing hits such as: "Everybody Loves The Sunshine", "Searchin," "Runnin," "You Send Me", "Mystic Voyage", "Vibrations", "Fever" and many more.

In the early 1970s, Ayers produced and recorded the soundtrack to legendary movie, "Coffy", featuring Pam Grier and Booker Bradshaw, a successful project released in 1973.

Credited as one of the prophets of Acid Jazz, a musician years a head of his time, Ayers respectively served his time at the top of the R&B charts during the height of his commercial success in the 70s. Often sampled by todays hip-hop and soul heavy weights including Erykah Badu, Kanye West, Mary J Blige, and The Roots, Femi Kuti and Guru.

Transcending borders and musical genres, the talented Roy Ayers will bring his musical genius to Detroit for one show and one night only. Urban Organic seeks to honor the musical talent who has paved the way, and serve as volumes of inspirations for artists today.

"This year's festival theme is Connecting the Dots, and we basically wanted to show where the love of the music originates. We are on a continuum, and it is important to look back and see who led the way. For that reason, we have chosen Roy Ayers to be our headlining artist," said Drake Phifer, founder of Urban Organic.

The Mayor of Detroit Kwame M. Kilpatrick says, "The Urban Organic Festival is a movement. Detroit's music scene has been the launching pad for some of today's most well-known artists and this festival is a showcase for established home-grown talent as well as the next generation of local and national artists."

The Urban Organic Festival is a multi-venue festival celebrating Detroit culture and soul music in its entirety occurs November 15th-November 18th in Downtown Detroit. Tickets for Roy Ayers are $20-$50.00. $20 tickets to see Roy Ayers, Anthony David, John Arnold, Monica Blaire, Alison Crockett, Suai and others are available for $20.00 until November 1st. More Information is available at www.urban-organic.net.

This year's Urban Organic Festival is presented by Fusicology.com the web's largest and fastest growing portal to progressive music and culture, The St. Regis Hotel of Detroit, and Project Producers, management company for Motown recording artist, Kem.

Recording artists Roy Ayers, Anthony David, and Amp Fiddler (pictured, top to bottom) will be performing live at MOCAD on Saturday, November 17 as part of the Urban Organic Festival '07.
 
Friday, November 16, 9 pm to 12 am
A NIGHT OF ART AND THE SOUND OF DESIGN
DJ KREEMY (A.K.A. KARIM RASHID)
w/ JEREMY "AYRO" ELLIS
Presented by MOCAD and Clear Magazine

No cover, cash bar

Rashid is a leading figure in the fields of product, interior, fashion, furniture, lighting design and art. He is best known for bringing his democratic design sensibility to the masses. Designing for an impressive array of clients from Alessi to Dirt Devil, Umbra to Prada, Miyake to Method, with his 2,500 products Rashid is radically changing the aesthetics of product design and the very nature of the consumer culture.

Playful, bold, unforgettable in personality and design, DJ Kreemy spins a set at Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. Also performing live, Jeremy "Ayro" Ellis.
 
Thursday, November 15 at 7pm
ARTIST'S TALK: SAM DURANT

L.A.-based artist Sam Durant will present his work.

"Like all histories, Durant's work is essentially a rolling dialogue between then and now... Like some renegade historian let loose in the library after dark, he weaves a lattice connecting the faded glories of Modernism with the tarnished moments of rock music, and dredges the idealism of civil rights era protest for its darker undercurrents." (Dan Fox, "Like a rolling stone," Frieze)

"...In Durant's work handwriting of a very specific kind -- that found on the signs that people carry at protests and marches -- serves as inspiration and source material. With his appropriation of these sign texts, Durant rescues from the prison house of received history a welcome aid in awakening us from the grey, resentful, depressive stupor into which some of us feel we have been pummeled by recent political history." (Jonathan Flatley, "The Agency of Letters," Afterall)

Sam Durant (b. 1961 Seattle, Washington) received his M.FA. from California Institute of the Arts. Durant has had solo exhibitions with Blum and Poe in Los Angeles and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has been recently included in the group exhibition Panic Room, from The Dakis Joannou Collection at the Deste Foundation Centre For Contemporary Art in Athens, Greece, and was included in the 2004 Whitney Biennial.

Sam Durant, Let's judge ourselves as people, 2002, Courtesy the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
 
Wednesday, November 14 at 7pm
GALLERY TALK: STEVEN SHAVIRO

Steven Shaviro will discuss work in the show Words Fail Me.

Shaviro is the DeRoy Professor of English at Wayne State University. He is the author of Passion and Excess (1990), The Cinematic Body (1993), Doom Patrols: A Theoretical Fiction About Postmodernism (1997) and Connected, or, What It Means To Live in the Network Society (2003). Read more on his blog, The Pinocchio Theory .

 
 
 
Thursday, November 8 at 7 pm
ARTIST'S TALK: LISA ANNE AUERBACH
WORDS NEVER FAIL ME
"Linkages Between Language and Art"


Artist Lisa Anne Auerbach will discuss her work. Visit her website for more information. And check stealthissweater.com as well.

"...Auerbach has deliberately pursued knitting as a formal art-making strategy. She has recast knitting from its traditional role as a nostalgic or otherwise personally historic language to an idiomatic armature on which to pin sociopolitical commentary. It's fine art about radicalized women's work, belonging to a tradition of art making that is rooted much more firmly in conceptual art than traditional garment or textile craft and trade ... Auerbach inverts the quiet domesticity of knitting, drafting the needle art into the service of public outrage and the assertion of individuality." (Shana Nys Dambrot, "Adorned in Ideas," Fiber Arts)

Lisa Anne Auerbach received her MFA in Fine Arts at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Her most recent solo show was at Gavlak in West Palm Beach in Florida in March of 2006. Over the past ten years Auerbach has consistently shown work across the U.S. She has also shown internationally at the CPK Kunstalle in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2006, the Cubitt in London, England in 2004, and the Pestorius Sweeny House in Brisbane, Australia in 2004. She has collaborated with such acclaimed artists as Andrea Zittel and Aleksandra Mir.

Lisa Anne Auerbach, Everything I touch turns to $old, 2006. Courtesy the artist and Gavlak, West Palm Beach, FL.
 
Saturday, November 3 at 8 pm
PAT OLESZKO: PERFORMANCE ART

"A ribald performance artist whose work charms as it disarms using satire, subversion and unabashed silliness. The films and performances show us an Amazonian artist whose body is both the seat of politics and a body of art." (patoleszko.com)

"Pat Oleszko makes a spectacle of herself -- and doesn't mind if you laugh. Known as the Ms Tricks of Dis Guise, she has a large body -- of work -- which includes many Unnatural Acts. Utilizing elaborate costumes and props, she has created lithe performantzes, films, installations that a-dress trees, knees, breasts, butts, elephants and fingers. There have been notorious spatial events with the cast-off thousands and uttered shenanigans. She has worked from the popular artforms of the street, party, parade and burlesque house, to the Museum of Modern Art, from Sesame Street Magazine to Ms, Playboy, and Artforum. A much decorated artist, literally and figuratively, she has been amply rewarded for her diverse efforts pumping irony and disparately bringing home the beacon. The truth squirts." (patoleszko.com)

Pat Oleszko, The Garden Variety Glad-He-Ate-Her
 
Thursday - Sunday, November 1-4
MEXICANTOWN HUBBARD COMMUNITIES
9TH ANNUAL DAY OF THE DEAD FESTIVAL & WALKING TOUR

At the Mexicantown Mercado & Ford Plaza
MOCAD Mercado Arts Workshops: Thursday & Friday, November 1-2, 9 am to 3 pm

Join the Mexicantown Community Development Corporation in the annual Day of the Dead festival with authentic Mexican food, Ofrendas, Dia de Muertos crafts, workshops, school tours and much more over a four-day celebration.

MOCAD will be offering craft stations at the Mercado Plaza for kids of all ages on Thursday and Friday of the Festival, 9am-3pm, at which participants can make and decorate their own paper cutout garlands, sugar skulls, papier mache items, calavera poems, and collage booklets.

Mexicantown Mercado
2826 Bagley Avenue
Detroit, MI 48216
313-967-9898/info@mexicantown.org
www.mexicantown.org

 
 
Thursday, October 25 at 6 pm
WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS: CELEBRATE DETROIT BOOKS!
$20 admission, or $15 admission for Wayne State University students and staff (with OneCard) and MOCAD members
RSVP for event

Join Wayne State University Press for our annual fall benefit at MOCAD. Celebrate Detroit with our books:

Amos Walker's Detroit
Text by Loren D. Estleman, Photographs by Monte Nagler

Connecting the Dots: Tyree Guyton's Heidelberg Project

Life with Mae: A Detroit Family Memoir
by Neal Shine

Sonny Sez: Legends, Yarns & Downright Truths
Text by Sonny Eliot, Illustrations by Draper Hill, Edited by Stanley D. Williams

American City: Detroit Architecture, 1845š2005
Text by Robert Sharoff, Photographs by William Zbaren

Talking Shops: Detroit Commercial Folk Art
Photographs by David Clements

Tour the museum and its new exhibition Words Fail Me. Mingle with authors while they sign and discuss their books. Enjoy wine, hors d'oeuvres, and desserts from some of our favorite local restaurants. Meet journalist Jack Lessenberry, master of ceremonies for the evening.

For more information about this event visit the WSU Press website: wsupress.wayne.edu.

 
 
 
Sunday, October 21 from 1-3 pm
"FUN WITH WORDS"
KIDS CRAFT & ACTIVITY DAY


The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) invites kids of all ages (that includes parents too) to pick up a glue stick, some coloring markers, and get ready to let your creative impulses take over every third Sunday of the month for our monthly KIDS CRAFT & ACTIVITY DAY.

As part of the 2007 fall programming, MOCAD presents a monthly children's workshop to engage specifically with the theme of the current exhibition Words Fail Me. Participants can create their own buttons, magnets and booklets that include a variety of word games and questions to connect kids with the artwork on view by exploring links between art and language. This event is free and open to the public. All materials are provided. Please call ahead for large groups.

 
 
Friday, October 19 at 8 pm
NEW MUSIC DETROIT: CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL MUSIC
$8 admission

This innovative group, featuring members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, returns to MOCAD with a new show. Don't miss the opportunity to see this live performance.

Learn more on their website: www.newmusicdetroit.com.

New Music Detroit
 
Friday, October 12
THOLLEM MCDONAS

6 pm: Discussion with Thollem McDonas about modern composition.

7 pm: Live performance, featuring Thollem McDonas, piano; Joel Peterson (of Odu Afrobeat Orchestra, immigrant suns, Scavenger Quartet), bass

Thollem McDonas is a pianist / vocalist / composer / improviser and the recipient of the 2006 National Endowment of the Artsˆ Meet The Composer grant from Washington, DC. Born in the Bay area in 1967. Currently based out of Prague. McDonas takes what he will from a youth spent studying intently the repertoire of European composers of the 20th century renaissance. Throwing elements learned as a international minstrel performing in theaters, universities, galleries, elementary schools, Jazz clubs, as well as, as an accompanist to West African drum troupes, Javanese gamelan ensembles, and as a composer for opera and modern dance.

Listen to Thollem McDonas at Edgetone records website

Thollem McDonas website

Visit Thollem McDonas's MySpace page.

This event will be MOCAD's first collaborative effort with the Bohemian National Home where McDonas will also be performing.

Thollem McDonas
 
Wednesday, October 10 at 7pm
ARTIST'S TALK: CARL POPE
"TEXT AS ARTISTIC PRACTICE"


"Street posters and advertisements don't merely sell stuff; they get inside the brain, shape thoughts, ideologies, identities. Or so one gathers from Pope's first New York solo show, a wall of handcrafted letterpress posters that carry messages like "African-Americans, Negroes, Blacks, and Post-Blacks All Agree: The Use of the 'a' Instead of the 'er' Changes Everything!" and "Venturing Into Blackness is a Lonely Business." Pope takes cues from writers like Ralph Ellison and Ishmael Reed, but his acerbic and funny approach to the politics of race draws comparisons to an even wider range of social forces, from street protests to critical theory." (New Yorker via Momenta)

Chicago-based artist Carl Pope will discuss his work. Carl Pope (b. 1961 Indianapolis, Indiana) revived his M.F.A. from Indiana University in 1999. He attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1997. His work was included in Afro-Futurism at the Soap Factory in Minneapolis, MN in 2005, The Whitney Biennial in 2000, Enough About Me at Momenta Art in 2002, and Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in 1994. He received a Louis Tiffany Foundation Award in 2005.

Read a review of Carl Pope's installation, The Bad Air Smelled of Roses, on the New York Times website.

Carl Pope: The Bad Air Smelled of Roses, 2004-2007, Letterpress Broadsides (top: installation, bottom: detail)
 
Sunday, October 7 from 1-3pm
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL MUSIC
Chamber Music, as part of the American Romanian Festival

As part of the American Romanian Festival, join us for a special afternoon of Classical Music. Performing will be: Cornel Taranu (conductor), Kyoko Kashiwagi (violin), Marian Tanau (violin), Eva Stern (viola), Paul Wingert (cello), Joel Schoenhals (piano) and Ling-Ju Lai (piano). Music performed will include: Dinu Lipatti: 'Fantesie op. 8', and Cornel Taranu: 'Prolegomene'. Performances and discussion will follow performances.

 
 
 
Saturday, October 6 at 7pm
FILM SCREENING & DISCUSSION
20 TO LIFE: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN SINCLAIR

Discussion with John Sinclair & director Steve Gebhardt to follow screening
$10 admission

John Sinclair is a real American character. Poet, performing artist and bandleader, music journalist, radio broadcaster, record producer, educator and archivist, Sinclair first emerged out of his small-town Michigan background to forge a legendary course through the 1960s as a cultural activist, founder of the Detroit Artists Workshop, manager of the MC-5, and Chairman of the White Panther Party. An early victim of the War on Drugs who faced 20 years to life in prison for giving two joints to an undercover policewoman, Sinclair mounted a historic challenge to the constitutionality of Michigan's marijuana laws and served 29 months of a 9-1/2-to-10-year sentence before his legal victory on appeal changed the law for good.

Sinclair left Detroit in 1991 for New Orleans and cut a broad mark there as a popular performing artist, music journalist, award-winning broadcast producer and radio personality on WWOZ-FM. In 1998 Sinclair was invited by High Times magazine to serve as High Priest at the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, beginning a burgeoning love affair with the Netherlands that climaxed with Sinclair's decision to move to Amsterdam in 2003.

Begun in 1991 and completed in 2004, 20 TO LIFE is the real-life story of this legendary poet-provocateur and American cultural warrior whose exploits have reverberated throughout the international underground for 40 years. The story is told by Sinclair, his family, friends and associates through the years and highlighted by a series of electrifying poetry performances by Sinclair's contemporary blues and jazz ensembles.

 
 
Friday, October 5
MUSIC AT MOCAD:
THE MULDOONS and
THIS MOMENT IN BLACK HISTORY

$5 admission
8 pm doors, 9 pm showtime
All ages

The Muldoons are a family band from Detroit. Two brothers that write, sing and compose songs while their dad drums. Shane (age 10) sings and plays guitar, Hunt (13) plays guitar and sings. Playing raw, unhinged garage rock & roll together, the Muldoons conjure the spirits of Detroit Rock's past while hailing it's future.

Listen to the Muldoons and watch videos on their myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/muldoonsofficialsite.

Also performing will be Cleveland's This Moment in Black History. Combining the quirky keyboard punk artiness of Pere Ubu & DEVO with the dirt-poor rock of legendary Cleveland pre-punks the Electric Eels & the Dead Boys to create their own hybrid, spastic art-punk sound.

Listen to This Moment in Black History

This Moment in Black History on myspace

The Muldoons (top) and This Moment in Black History (bottom).
 
Wednesday, October 3, 11:30 am to 1 pm
CREATIVE CAPITAL FOUNDATION
GRANT INFORMATION SESSION
Performing Artists, Writers, and Artists in Emerging Fields

Kemi Ilesanmi
Associate Director of Grants & Services

Creative Capital Foundation is a national nonprofit organization that supports artists pursuing adventurous and imaginative work in the performing and visual arts, film/video, innovative literature, and emerging fields. In 2008, Creative Capital will be considering proposals in the performing arts, innovative literature, and emerging fields.* Far from a traditional funder, Creative Capital is committed to working in long-term partnership with the bold and groundbreaking artists that we fund by making a multi-year financial commitment as well as providing advisory services and professional development assistance. We have a special interest in projects that transcend discipline boundaries and reveal something new about the moment in which we live. For more information, please visit www.creative-capital.org.

The Multi-Arts Production Fund is program of Creative Capital, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation. The MAP Fund supports new works in all disciplines and traditions of the live performing arts. Our aim is to assist artists who are exploring and challenging the dynamics of contemporary live performance. In contrast to the preservation of existing repertoire, MAP Fund supports those creating the art of our own time. For more information, please visit www.mapfund.org.

Please RSVP and refer questions to grants@creative-capital.org

* Performing Arts may include dance, music theater, experimental music performance, experimental opera, spoken word, theater/performance art, puppetry, and interdisciplinary projects. Emerging Fields may include all forms of digital arts, audio work, multidisciplinary projects, and new genres. Innovative Literature may include poetry, fiction, nonfiction, as well as genre-defying work by writers who demonstrate exceptional stylistic, linguistic, and formal originality.

 
 
 
Sunday, September 23 from 3 - 5 pm
AUTHOR READING: ALEXANDER SUSZEK, GREGORY KIEWIET AND DAVID CLEMENTS
A collaboration between MOCAD, Wayne State University Press and Marick Press


Representing Marick Press is Alexander Suczek. In addition to his longtime service to Pro Musica Detroit, Alexander Suczek's involvement in classical music and the arts began while a student at Harvard University as a company member of the Brattle Theater. Since then, Suczek has performed as a classical guitarist and folk and art singer and headed a summer concert series for 25 years. For the past several years, he has authored a weekly column in the Grosse Pointe News, "State of the Arts." In 2006, he was decorated by the Austrian government for promoting that country's image in arts and music in the United States. Now retired, he was a writer and executive for Campbell-Ewald. He now spends his time at his homes in Grosse Pointe Farms and South Padre Island, Texas. The Witness of Music is his first book.

MOCAD is pleased to welcome Gregory Kiewiet. Kiewiet received his M. A. in English (with an emphasis in Creative Writing) in 2001 from Wayne State University and his B. A. in Art History and English from Oakland University in 1995. Most recently, a scene from his play "A Day In the Hour" appeared in the publication Box. In 2004 some of his translations from the Dutch Poet Coert Poort appeared in Dispatch Detroit volume seven. His other work has appeared in Marks: An On-line Arts Journal, Dispatch Detroit volume two, Graffite Rag, and Woodward Magazine. His play "Gun For Hire" was a finalist in the Lois Heck-Rabi Dramatic Writing Competition in 2001.

Wayne State University is proud to welcome David Clements, author and photographer of Talking Shops.

All writers will have books available through MOCAD for signing.

Come and celebrate this new initiative with us! These three non-profit organizations are dedicated to introducing visionary and groundbreaking books of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and art to the city of Detroit and its surrounds.

 
 
Saturday, September 22 from 1 - 3 pm
ELLEN LUPTON
FAMILY DAY WORKSHOP:
"MAKE YOUR OWN WORD ART"


The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit invites kids of all ages (that includes parents too) to pick up a glue gun, some coloring markers, and get ready to let your creative impulses take over as Ellen Lupton leads demonstrations of activities from her new book D.I.Y. Kids.

Featuring dozens of creative activities from decoupage boxes, graffiti bracelets, stencil sweatshirts, popsicle magnets, and graphics exercises, Lupton brings her background in design and visual culture to life for all ages by creating a how-to book inspired by the current Do-It-Yourself culture, coyly redubbed "Design-It-Yourself" by Lupton.

As part of the 2007 fall programming, MOCAD presents a children's workshop with renowned designer Lupton to launch the forthcoming publication of D.I.Y Kids, co-written with her twin sister Julia Lupton, and soon to be published by Princeton Architectural Press. As curator of contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum (1992-2007), Lupton produced numerous exhibitions and books, including Mechanical Brides: Women and Machines from Home to Office (1993), Mixing Messages: Graphic Design and Contemporary Culture (1996), and Skin: Surface, Substance + Design (2002). Special advance copies of D.I.Y. Kids will be available for sale.

Ellen Lupton is the recent recipient of the prestigious 2007 Gold Metal Award from the American Institute of Graphic Design. She is a writer, curator, and graphic designer. She is currently director of the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore.

Download a flyer for this event here.
Some of the projects featured on Ellen and Julia Lupton's D.I.Y. Kids website.
 
Sunday, September 16 at 3pm
SCREENING OF MEMORY BUCKET FOLLOWED BY A CONVERSATION BETWEEN MATTHEW HIGGS AND JEREMY DELLER

Join us as guest curator Matthew Higgs and artist Jeremy Deller discuss Deller's celebrated film, Memory Bucket.

Jeremy Deller (b. 1966 London, England) received the Turner Prize in 2004. He also was chosen to be an international artist in residence at Artpace in San Antonio, Texas. Jeremy exhibited in the very prominent 54th annual Carnegie International. He was recently included in the Prague Biennale 3. He has had solo exhibitions at The Modern Institute in Glasgow, Scotland; The Centre Pompidou in Paris, France, and the Tate Modern in London, England.

Matthew Higgs is a curator, critic and artist currently living and working in New York. Since the early 1990s he has sought to develop a practice that considers the intersections and overlaps between these disciplines. Higgs is currently the Director and Chief Curator of White Columns, New York's oldest non-profit art space.

Jeremy Deller, Memory Bucket, 2003, video still
 
Saturday, September 15 at 7pm
WORDS FAIL ME
Curated by Matthew Higgs

Reading by John Giorno
Followed by music by
Little Claw, Pink Reason, Michael Yonkers

$8 admission, free for MOCAD members

The exhibition opens on Sept.15 with a special preview from 7-11 pm. At 8pm the poet John Giorno will give a reading. Music by Little Claw from their new album, Pink Reason and Michael Yonkers begins at 9:30. There will be a cash bar.

The artists in the show are:

Lisa Anne Auerbach
Tauba Auerbach
Anne-lise Coste
Martin Creed
Jeremy Deller
Sam Durant
Peter Fischli / David Weiss
Ryan Gander
Siobhan Liddell
Jonathan Monk
Philippe Parreno
Jack Pierson
Carl Pope
Kay Rosen
Ron Terada
Rirkrit Tiravanija
Jennifer West

Words Fail Me is an exhibition that explores visual art's ongoing engagement -- and entanglement - with language. Language is labyrinthine, its permutations endless: This is partly the pleasure of words. The complexity of language, its ability to both inform and confound us, is -- no doubt -- part of its continuing appeal to artists. Words Fail Me considers highly idiosyncratic manifestations of language in recent contemporary art produced by an international and intergenerational group of artists. Throughout the exhibition language is denied its interpretive, explicatory, or narrative function. Instead the works in the exhibition embrace language's more permeable state: its elasticity, its penchant for questions, subtexts and double meanings. Exploring language's limits and limitations the works in Words Fail Me are often highly emotive and occasionally melancholic, collectively they embrace questions of politics, mortality, identity, idealism, and alienation. Prevailing throughout is a nagging sense of ambivalence that reflects upon - and perhaps even amplifies -- the uncertainties of our present social landscape.

Images at right, top to bottom: John Giorno (read an interview here), Little Claw, Michael Yonkers, Pink Reason.

 
 
Wednesday, August 8 at 8pm
METRONOMY
JIMMY EDGAR

$7 admission
All ages

Between playing at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA, METRONOMY will be stopping by Detroit to play at Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit!

Twenty-three-year-old Jospeh Mount, AKA London's METRONOMY has been causing a considerable stir recently. Feted by everyone from Roots Manuva to Bright Eyes, Franz Ferdinand to Gorillaz (all of whom he has remixed) his live show features a full live band and "will blow your wig off" (Losingtoday).

METRONOMY's distinctive production sound with Melodica, accordion, guitar and found sounds, has a disarming charm. The hilarious live show, uses a full band, The Food Groups, all wired up, with syncronised light dances doing a semaphore and a morsey wave to the masses at sold out shows from Trash & Hammersmith to supporting likes of The Presets, Pippettes, Klaxons, Sunshine Underground on tour. Stirring up Krautrock, dancehall, polka, pop, and folk music: his album is a revelation!

WEB: http://www.myspace.com/metronomy
Watch a video on YouTube.

Besides Scissor Sisters and Klaxons, Metronomy has already remixed...

Box Codax
Sebastien Tellier
Roots Manuva
Franz Ferdinand
Lady Sovereign
Ladytron
Bright Eyes
Magnet

before he even released a record!

There will also be a performance by Jimmy Edgar (Warp Records). Visit his website for more information: http://www.jimmyedgar.com/

Metronomy (top) and Jimmy Edgar (bottom)
 
Saturday, July 28 at 9:30
MOCAD DRIVE-IN MOVIE NIGHTS ON WOODWARD: THE LOST AVANT-GARDE
Admission charge $5/person, $10/car.

George Manupelli: Cry Dr. Chicago (1971)

Note: The drive-in movie screening, originally scheduled for July 14, was postponed to July 28 due to inclement weather.

What better way to celebrate the Summer than a drive-in movie in the heart of the motor city? As part of its Avant-Garde Film series, The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit is proud to present the debut of our drive-in movie night. Pack a car full of people or bring lawn chairs and enjoy a summer night.

On July 14th at 9:30 pm we will be screening George Manupelliçs feature film Cry Dr. Chicago, an offbeat vision of a strangely sympathetic scumbag in pursuit of his impossible American dream. Referred to as one of the "pioneering examples of New American Cinema" (George Tysh, Metrotimes, June 27, 2007), the Dr. Chicago series is Manupelli's exquisitely composed romp of a film. Shot locally on the grounds of Cranbrook in 1971, The DR. CHICAGO films were the last great project of the legendary Once Group, who made up the cast, including the now famous composer Alvin Lucier and Steve Paxton; a dance pioneer of the late 20th century.

The feature will be preceeded by short films, including local filmmaker Jack Cronin's Invisible City, an ode to Detroit Italo Calvino style.

 
 
 
Thursday, July 26 at 7pm
FILM NIGHT: MODELS OF AVANT-GARDE FILM, PROGRAM IV, MYTH

E. Elias Merhige: Begotten (1990)

Another form of magic, close to surrealism and the work of Maya Deren, is the exploration of myth and origins, and this is the central preoccupation of Merhige's still extraordinary film Begotten which Susan Sontag characterized as one of the ten most important films of all time.

 
 
 
Thursday, July 19 at 7pm
FILM NIGHT: MODELS OF AVANT-GARDE FILM, PROGRAM III, SOAP OPERA

Louis Feuillade: Fantomas, (1913)

Feuillade's early serial, Fantomas, is nothing less than a form of soap opera of the avant-garde, especially the surrealists, and allows one to see how the surrealists were enraptured by Fantomas for transforming the everyday into something marvelous and magical.