MySpace, Facebook, Twitter—the digital world is rife with self-indulgent autobiographies bedecked with glitter and schmaltz, broken down into convenient, bit- sized segments like “heroes,” “favorite books,” “status” and “about me.” Now one need not even connect to the Internet to get a heavy dose of introspection with Sadie Harmon’s “New Works”at Around the Coyote Gallery. Harmon’s multimedia installation is prefaced by “A Helpful Guide”—sharpie-scrawled, numbered notes written on the gallery wall, presumably intended to introduce her audience to the brightly colored installations which follow. The installations, which feature materials like pompon balls, ruled notebook paper and rainbow glitter, ostensibly chronicle Harmon’s concept of an artist’s creative process; in reality, they are a color-coded guide to Harmon herself, from her love/hate relationship with Jay Z to her collection of National Geographic collaged and straight-pinned to the walls. “A Few Things About Myself,” the title of a blindingly orange installation featuring her family tree (“from memory”) and ballpoint pen sketches of various celebrities, is a label that could easily be applied to every piece in the exhibition, the self-involved nature of which quickly transitions from impish to puerile in its redundancy. Unfortunately, Harmon’s vainglorious installation is replete without even a hint of irony, reducing a potentially critical look at society’s narcissism into another indulgent personal profile, one on which the comments page is still to come. (Jaime Calder)
Through July 5 at Around the Coyote Gallery, 1935 1?2 W. North.
Lost in Translation: A Review of Crip* at Gallery 400 The strongest works in the exhibition succinctly express the ways the artist relates to their own body while calling out how the artist’s body and body of work has been perceived or coded against norms or ideals.
Repurposing AI: A Review of Stephanie Dinkins at Stamps Gallery While this show is timely for everyone, I consider its setting within a university art gallery and emerging tech hub like the city of Ann Arbor a subversive provocation which Dinkins invites the greater public—including members of the university community—to consider our own positionality to AI and technology.
