DIA eNews August 2014
In This Issue
Director's Letter
Exhibitions
DIA Collects
DFT
Fash Bash
News and Notes

Director's LetterDirector's Letter

Graham W.J. Beale, Director 

How different things are from a year ago. Back then, the DIA and Detroit's emergency manager were on opposite sides of the fence, and our great collection was under threat as the only city asset that, in theory, could be readily liquidated. (I say "in theory" because the sort of instant sale implicit in so much of the media coverage was never likely to happen.)

Today, after remarkable work by a number of individuals, we are close to securing the collection in perpetuity. Hurdles that seemed to double as land mines have been overcome and a combination of private, foundation, state, and business funds have been committed to ameliorate the lamentable condition of City of Detroit pension funds. The Grand Bargain (as most now call it) was the brainchild of Chief U.S. District Court Judge Gerald Rosen who, along with the highly regarded Detroit lawyer, Eugene Driker, developed the idea that the DIA's collection could be the carrot to draw significant contributions that would help pensioners otherwise threatened with true hardship and, at the same time, put the collection safely in a public trust.

As part of this deal, the DIA committed to raising $100 million over twenty years, and Chairman of the Board Gene Gargaro and I have made many visits to corporations and businesses, all of whom have responded magnificently. It was personally heartwarming to be given evidence of the value the DIA holds in the context of this region's economic and cultural realms. We are closing in on our target and, at time of writing, have commitments from the following foundations, companies, and individuals:

  • Ford Motor Company Fund
  • General Motors Company; General Motors Foundation
  • Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
  • Roger S. Penske and Penske Corporation
  • Chrysler
  • DTE Energy
  • Quicken Loans and the Rock Ventures Family of Companies
  • Paul and Carol Schaap
  • The J. Paul Getty Trust
  • Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan
  • Mort and Brigitta Harris
  • Lear Corporation
  • Lynn and Paul Alandt; Benson Ford, Jr.
  • Mandell and Madeleine Berman
  • Comerica Bank
  • JP Morgan Chase Foundation
  • Meijer
  • Consumers Energy
  • Delta Air Lines Foundation

We are most grateful to these entities for helping to secure the DIA's future. Their enthusiastic and prompt response to our request has underscored the important relationship between the DIA and our community. A number of other generous donors have made commitments to the DIA's Grand Bargain commitment and I will let you know about them as soon as I can. Thank you.

Graham Beal Signature
Graham W. J. Beal

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Exhibitions

Detroit--Bruce WeberDetroit--Bruce Weber

Through September 7
Special Exhibition Galleries: Central

 

Kronk Boxing Gym, Detroit, Michigan, 2006; Bruce Weber, American; pigment print. �Bruce Weber

 

From 2006 to 2013, noted photographer Bruce Weber captured Detroit's culture, urban style, and traditions, focusing his lens on the everyday: the corner barbershop, churchgoers in their Sunday best, entertainers--known and unknown--students in all guises, and activities on Belle Isle. Weber said of the city, "the art there just doesn't happen in a museum. It happens out on the street, and I'm not talking about graffiti."

Weber explored the city's renowned, but now shuttered Kronk Gym, famous for the string of marquee names it produced under the supervision of Emanuel Stewart. The photographer's long-term fascination with boxers can be seen in his early 1983 portrait series of Olympic hopeful and Detroit native Rickey Womack. He shot well-known boxers, like Tommy "The Hitman" Hearns, along with young athletes just getting their start. Curator Nancy Barr says of the Kronk pictures "Bruce kind of nailed that....He tapped into this little piece of Detroit that nobody's really seen."

Weber said he fell in love with the people in the city--their genuine friendliness, spirit, and resiliency. Perhaps his affinity with Detroit boxers prompted him to add, "If I was ever in trouble, I would want someone from Detroit to be there with their dukes up along with mine."

For more on Weber and a slide show of exhibition images, click here. A catalogue, poster, and other exhibition-related items are available in the Museum Shop.

Above: Janelson Figueora, Student and National Champion Boxer, Detroit, Michigan, 2013; Bruce Weber, American; pigment print. � Bruce Weber

This exhibition is organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts and presented in collaboration with Cond� Nast.

Cond� Nast

Free with museum admission.

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The DIA CollectsThe DIA Collects

 

Miss Lo�e Fuller, 1893; Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French; lithograph sprinkled with metallic powder. Museum Purchase, Graphic Arts and Photography General Fund

 
 

Child with Lamp, 1897; Pierre Bonnard, French; lithograph. Museum Purchase, John S. Newberry Fund

 

Two recently acquired color lithographs, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's Miss Loie Fuller and Pierre Bonnard's Child with Lamp, enhance an overlooked period in the DIA's effort to build a collection representative of significant achievements in the history of printmaking--the "color revolution" that exploded on the Parisian art scene in the early 1890s.

Lautrec and Bonnard, along with Edouard Vuillard and Maurice Denis, are the most prominent artists to have made multicolored prints. They started their careers designing posters for the entertainment industry, and all went on to create some of the most admired images of the time. Multiple- color lithographs that celebrated contemporary life had almost no history before this period.

In the history of printmaking, Lautrec ranks among the most brilliant and representative of the 1890s avant-garde artists. But, as popular and influential as so many of Lautrec's prints and posters became, none exhibit the same degree of finish, forethought, and sophistication as Miss Loie Fuller. Fuller, an American dancer, became an overnight Parisian sensation with the debut of her unconventional program at the Folies Berg�re in 1892. Her great success and eventual recognition as a pioneer in modern dance arose from choreographing presentations that relied on voluminous costumes, unprecedented lighting techniques, and complex props. Lautrec captured the vivid, shimmering visual effects of Fuller's performance by printing every impression of this image in different colors and sprinkling them with metallic powder.

Bonnard turned to the people around him, especially his children, for his compositions of family members and views of life in the city. Child with Lamp was approximately Bonnard's twelfth attempt to work with multiple colors. Many of his early efforts were posters rather than smaller, more intimate renditions such as this one. The print was intended for publisher Ambrose Vollard's third album of color lithographs by the most prominent artists of the era, but that project was never realized as planned.

From their inception, such lithographs were very popular and widely collected. They are very fragile and overexposure to light will rapidly fade the colors and damage the paper on which they are printed. For these reasons, individual prints are not constantly on view. But these two prints can be seen in the upcoming exhibition Ordinary People by Extraordinary Artists: Works on Paper by Degas, Renoir, and Friends, opening September 19, in the Schwartz Galleries of Prints and Drawings.

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Detroit Film TheatreDetroit Film Theatre

The Detroit Film Theatre takes the show on the road this month with outdoor screenings of the original 1954 Japanese Godzilla and a newly restored version of the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night in three Huron-Clinton Metroparks.

 

Celebrating its 60th anniversary, Godzilla (left) is the monster movie that ushered in an entirely new genre of movie entertainment. The original 1954 version was recently described as "still the most awesome! Pop culture's grandest symbol of nuclear apocalypse!" by Entertainment Weekly.

This version contains scenes that were removed from American prints of the film during the 1950s, and were replaced by newly shot "inserts" featuring American actor Raymond Burr. This restored version, without Raymond Burr, and in Japanese with English subtitles, gives moviegoers the chance to see one of the most highly influential monster movies ever made in an outdoor setting large enough to do justice to the "king of the monsters."

 

The 50th anniversary restoration of A Hard Day's Night, (left) one of the most popular and influential movie musicals ever made, features the big-screen debuts of John, Paul, George. and Ringo, also known as the Beatles. Under the supervision of the movie's original director, Richard Lester, A Hard Day's Night has undergone a painstakingly thorough restoration, emerging with a crispness in both picture and sound that makes the vitality, laughs, and musical excitement of A Hard Day's Night feel even more electric than it did during its original 1964 worldwide release.

Described by Roger Ebert as "one of the great life-affirming landmarks of the movies," A Hard Day's Night features a host of great Beatles classics, including "Tell Me Why," "Can't Buy Me Love," "You Can't Do That," "I'll Cry Instead," and, of course, the title song. Filmed on location in and around London, A Hard Day's Night is a potent time capsule of a specific place and era in pop culture history and a total delight-especially in the great outdoors.

Godzilla plays on Friday nights and A Hard Day's Night Saturdays August 2 and 3 Kensington Metropark in Milford, August 8 and 9 Stony Creek Metropark in Shelby Township, and Aug. 15 and 16 at Willow Metropark in New Boston. The programs begin each night with a short reel by award-winning Michigan student filmmakers presented by the Michigan Student Film Festival, an annual competition organized by Detroit Area Film and Television (DAFT). Movies begin each night at 8:45 p.m. and are free with park admission.

For more information, click here.

The DFT is presented by Buddy's Pizza.

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Fash BashFash Bash

 

Tickets are still available for late night dancing under the stars at this year's Fash Bash, Founders Junior Council's signature fundraiser, on Thursday, August 14. Sartorial Splendor tickets, at $85 per person, provide access to the Audi After Party on the DIA's front steps.

Sponsors of Fash Bash 2014 include: Neiman Marcus, Audi, AVL Cultural Foundation, DTE Energy Foundation, Nicole & Stephen Eisenberg, Fisher & Company, Meridian Health Plan, Treger & Rob Strasberg, and the Suburban Collection.

Fash Bash 2014 proceeds will directly benefit the museum's operating endowment, helping to ensure the DIA's long-term sustainability in the community.

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News and NotesNews and Notes

 

Inside|Out
Look for the latest DIA Inside|Out installation of high-quality reproductions of masterpieces in eight new locations in August. Art door "galleries" can be found in Brownstown Township, Dearborn, Downtown Detroit and the Detroit Riverwalk, Mt. Clemens, Oak Park, Royal Oak, St. Clair Shores, and Wixom. The images are on view through October 31. Click here for more information on local events.

Free Art-Making Classes
Indulge your creative side at the DIA in two free art-making classes this month, taught by professional artists. On Thursday, August 14, 10:30 a.m. to noon, use acrylic paints to explore color mixing and expressive brushwork techniques. On Thursday, August 21, use a simple relief-printing method to create an image that can be printed multiple times. Classes, free with museum admission, are intended for all experience levels and are for participants ages five and older (those younger than 12 must be with an adult). Registration is on-site the day of the class on a first-come, first-served basis. Indulge your creative side at the DIA in two free art-making classes this month, taught by professional artists. On Thursday, August 14, 10:30 a.m. to noon, use acrylic paints to explore color mixing and expressive brushwork techniques. On Thursday, August 21, use a simple relief-printing method to create an image that can be printed multiple times. Classes, free with museum admission, are intended for all experience levels and are for participants ages five and older (those younger than 12 must be with an adult). Registration is on-site the day of the class on a first-come, first-served basis. And don't forget the weekday drop-in workshops from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Click here for more information on the classes and here for workshop activities. 

In the Shop
This August, celebrate artist Andy Warhol's birthday with the purchase of a pop-art themed gift from the DIA! From sticky-notes to puppets to wonderful books, you will find something wonderfully Warhol in the shop or at diashop.org.

Parking
Just a reminder, the entrance and exit to the parking lot across John R. from the museum is on Brush. A pedestrian pathway provides access to Farnsworth.

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Detroit Institute of Arts
5200 Woodward Avenue
Detroit, Michigan 48202
www.dia.org
313.833.7900

Comments or questions about the newsletter? Please contact us: [email protected] 

ADMISSION
$8 adults, $6 seniors, $4 children
The museum is free for members and residents of Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb Counties
Contact the Membership HelpLine at
313.833.7971 or [email protected] 

For group sales (15 or more) contact 313.833.1292 or dia.org/grouptours 

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Call 313.833.1925 or
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HOURS
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Mon CLOSED
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Fri 9 a.m.-10 p.m.
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PARKING
Valet parking is $10 per car and available at the Woodward entrance Friday through Sunday during museum hours.

Lighted, secure self-parking is available in the Cultural Center parking lot, between John R and Brush, behind the museum.

Caf�DIA
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Fri 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m., 4-9 p.m.
Sat, Sun 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

Kresge Court
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Fri 9 a.m.-9:30 p.m.
Sat., Sun 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

Museum Shop
313.833.7944 or [email protected]
Open during museum hours or online at diashop.org 

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