After eight years of allowing it to lie dormant and alone, are we finally able to retrieve a sincere form of patriotism from the top shelf, dust it off and fully enjoy the nectar of democracy? Or rather, are we too encumbered with our immediate crises to make a real go of it? Or yet, as Kaylee Rae Wyant and Jerome Acks propose in their current exhibition at Julius Caesar Gallery, might there be a possible marriage of critical and patriotic practices? In their collaborative show, one is never quite sure if we’re in the process of building monuments or toppling them over, suspended as the images of revolution are in an ambiguous freeze-frame, the structure manifest and the stitching unraveled. The artists have presented some small collage paintings that both speak of an official portraiture that has either been classified or obliterated. Those works flank a large painting/sculpture structure that asks the audience to change our perspective, both literally and figuratively, to put the space back together. The work coyly lends itself to interpretation as liberating destruction or nascent creation allowing us to project our own desires upon it. And should we want to flog any remaining derision and sarcasm to purify our patriotism, the artists have kindly propped a red, white and blue stick in one corner for good measure. Perhaps the most salient token to take away from the show is that politics and patriotism are never as solidly two-dimensional. Instead, the artists remind us that they are fully fleshed environments for engagement and creativity. (Jason Pallas)
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.
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