Can Dr. Hubert Massey Soothe the Crisis of Muralgate in the City of Detroit?
Maybe We Need to Go to Muskegon for Peace Talks?
Wednesday February 14th, 2024 at 8:59 AM
Valentines Day
Near Elmwood Cemetery
Detroit, Michigan
I am hoping to get a handle of the exhibit curated by Dr. Hubert Massey, Visions: 16 Detroit Artists. On display at the Muskegon Museum of Art, the exhibit is too big, really, to handle. Detroit is a town of fine arts, including the art of muraling. Let’s begin by declaring that our impulse to paint murals began with the Detroit Industry Murals, painted in Rivera Gallery in the Detroit Institute of Arts. It’s a declaration. It doesn’t have to be perfectly true.
Hence, all muralists working in the city carry the fire of that amazing engagement with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo between April 1932 and the unveiling in November 1933. Massey carries the torch ignited by that pure artistic process, thankfully funded by Edsel Ford and the Ford family.
In Fall 2023, I was visiting the open house of City Tour in the Guardian Building. The top-notch tour outfit commissioned an indoor mural of the Guardian Building, an art deco masterpiece. It’s a work executed by Matthew Massey, the good doctor’s son. The owner of the tour company felt proud of the piece because she believed that Massey worked with Pablo Davis on at least one project, learning all that Pablo Davis had learned as an apprentice to Rivera on the Detroit murals. The conversations between Davis, a Detroiter who passed away at an advanced age, and Massey might make the topic of a rather important podcast.
Massey has protégés among the Detroit artist community. At an event across from Clark Park organized by Beto Patino, I met a painter named Daniel. Daniel and Dr. Massey talk often, and Daniel produces promising work that can only be described as mythic. Daniel’s characters use the planets as billiard balls. However, Dr. Massey might not have enough bandwidth to work with all the painters who come to him to learn the secrets of paint and fresco. As for Daniel, I have to imagine. Starting with a mural mentor and a mythic imagination, where will Daniel go next?
I met an accomplished muralist named Samuel Majeed in April of last year. As of the conversation, Majeed and Massey had not found a way to collaborate. Is this a case of “Many are called; Few are chosen?” According to legend, a tearful Pablo Davis had to plead his case to Frida Kahlo before Diego Rivera took on the painter who threw over everything to come to Detroit and work with the Mexican phenomena. Ray Paseka, the prairie pathways muralist of the Starved Rock Country, has raised my attention several times for rejecting potential apprentices. And if you know about Paseka, you know the muralist needs at least one person to protect himself from falls.
Some of these artists that were selected by Massey could be called lieutenants in the army of painters who lavish their talents upon Detroit during mural season. Lieutenants. My word. Not anybody elses. When I met Peter Bernal at 333 Midland, I heard the term “Mural Season” in our conversation. Bernal kept incredibly busy during mural season. Along with Mike Ross, a stakeholder at 333 Midland, Bernal anchors the creative community at the Muskegon Heights industrial raw space experiment. Bakpak Durden and Sydney James add vitality to BLKOUT Walls, a powerful coterie of muralists who leverage their friendship with The Platform and the Chroma coworking space. Richard Wilson rates as a national treasure, a force in the mural effort, famous for the mural in Detroit’s Paradise Valley, Tribute to Stevie Wonder.
Sadly, in picking sixteen artists, Massey’s eye overlooked Kobie Solomon, painter of the famous image, Detroit Chimera, on the side of the Russell Industrial Complex. Massey’s selections tend toward older artists, with Bernal the youngest, by my guess. I remember Solomon when a partner and he started an outrageous gallery upstairs from Tom’s Oyster Bar in Royal Oak. Called Tagged and Bagged, the gallery lasted no more than half a year, but I visited every month.
As for Detroit Chimera, Solomon painted the masterpiece for close to nothing. He funded the work through Kickstarter, but only yielded five grand from the crowdfunding platform. The image has shown up in the Bob Dylan Super Bowl Commercial in 2014, but I haven’t heard that Solomon saw a dime. I’m rather glad my nephew employs him as an art director for Puff Danny’s in Wyandotte, helping keep Solomon solvent. And the money issue continues as part of Muralgate. Sydney James has proposed at least fifteen dollars a square foot, which seems like a bargain to this writer. By this measure, Solomon would have been paid 131,250 dollars for the 8,750 square foot work.
A quick note to the mayor’s office on settling Muralgate feels appropriate right now. Apparently, the mayor’s office hired a well meaning organization named Street Art for Mankind to paint some rather awesome murals at the end of Mural Season 2023. An estimated 217 K was billed for six fairly extraordinary murals. Sidney James learned about the projects from her network, and it's an extensive, powerful and supportive network. James deserved a meeting with the city if not a telephone call.
Anyone writing on Muralgate has to be careful about stating facts. Right now, it’ll cost the Free Press 17K to pay for a Freedom of Information act request for emails written by a city agent to kick off Street Art for Mankind’s work. Facts are expensive.
Fallout is likely. Now, as of last reading, we have the city council itself declining to approve payment to the non-profit organization. We also have a large number of crestfallen, talented Detroiters who need to be consulted, consoled and brought back into the fold. The weather moves towards warmer months, and the Mural Season looks under threat.
Many fences await to be mended in the mural ecosystem. For example, I had a chance to meet with Viranel Clerard, the driven Detroiter who documented most of the street art published in Detroit Mural City map. Every city needs talents such as Clerard to work. Detroit has benefited greatly from his contribution.
But he’s not the first. Clerard follows the examples of Lowell Beaulieu of DetroitYES, Stephen Goodfellow of Corridor Tribes and, my favorite, Jim Pallas of JimPallas.com. We find this powerful impulse to preserve the city’s treasure, even if just in words and text, at Historic Detroit, thanks to Dan Austin and Helmut Ziewers. I know I have had a rather good time leveraging interviews held in Detroit by the Archives of American Art, a branch of the Smithsonian Institute begun in Detroit at the Detroit Institute of Arts. With a committee that included Al Taubman, we designed a fundraiser called the Lundi Gras around those interviews. We held it at the Roostertail with the full help of the owners.
The city can do more than just give these talents a handshake. Recently, the Department of Arts, Culture and Entrepreneurship announced an application process for the positions of Composer Laureate and Poet Laureate. The Ford Foundation has agreed to support these positions as paid posts. The laureates will be called upon to teach classes and compose works of art to celebrate life in Detroit. These roles will be added to the team at ACE, just like City Historian.
Why not also make “Documenter Laureate” a post? The city keeps an inventory on fire equipment, parks and even sidewalks. Why not make it a paid post to keep track of manifestations of the city’s art teams, such as the teams of mural season? It might be as important as keeping track of the sidewalks, which are now seeing major maintenance. Public art is infrastructure.
And now, let’s return to Dr. Massey, who’s mission could be the saving of Mural Season. In preparation for What Defines Muskegon, Massey engaged the community in numerous listening sessions. Diego Rivera made sketches and visited shop works at the Ford Rouge Plant for months before painting in the courtyard.
Massey brings a sense of history to his selections. Richard Lewis and Shirley Woodson have found representation at Sherry Washington Arts, which might not have a brick and mortar location at this time. Sherry Washington carried the Detroit Art Scene for years. Now carrying the scene from a location in Southfield, Henry Heading hangs art at Umoja Fine Arts.
MOCAD celebrated the work of Judy Bowman with a solo show entitled Gratiot Griot. The fame of that show echoed throughout the city, thanks to the Digital Wayfinding Kiosks from IKE Smart City, deployed by the Downtown Detroit Partnership. These lovely illuminated, interactive displays show the bright side of the city, and I’m pretty grateful to the one on the northwestern corner of Seven and Van Dyke at 6:30 AM in the morning. Yes, it’s collecting data on those who are walking around the kiosk. Might it bring more business to that corner. Savvy Sliders is just a beginning.
I need time to delve into the work of half the selected sixteen. Vernard Rubens has a connection with Gallerie Camille, which puts the artist in great company. Nivek Monet has a home at detroit contemporary gallery. Aaron Timlin and Bri Hayes could write the official book on Detroit arts in the new century if the Carr Center agreed to contribute to the encyclopedia. Laura Gibson practiced as artist as residence at Talking Dolls on Davison near Van Dyke, enough vouching in any Detroit art critic’s book. I look forward to learning more about Detroit art by studying the remaining of Massey’s selections.
Maybe the solution to Muralgate lies to the west of the city. As much as possible, Ypsilanti and Muskegon have made mural season an opportunity for community engagement. Three murals in Muskegon came to be thanks to the assistance of an organization called the Walldogs. All of these murals were spoken for by check-writing sponsors by the time the first brush touched the paint.
The community became totally aware of the murals well before the painting took place. I got a copy of “Muskegon Proud”, looking like a page from a coloring book, from my well-connected friend. It had been forwarded hundreds of times by the time it reached my mailbox. Similar build-up went before the painting of Muskegon Soars and Celebrate Muskegon in the downtown art district. Even better, the Walldogs trained a crew of local painters how to trace and paint a mural according to the designs provided by the Walldogs.
Ypsilanti has quite a collection of murals coming together, largely thanks to the efforts of Gary Horton of Horton Painting Co. He’s fairly famous around Ann Arbor, but I’ve not seen Gary Horton pick up a mural commission in Detroit. Horton designed a small mural on the side of a business near the Ypsilanti Bus Station. He painted the more complicated parts of a mural depicting a bus driver motoring a bus from Ann Arbor to Ypsilanti. His composition included thumbnails of notable landmarks of Ann Arbor and Ypsi. The rest of the mural was painted by local high school students following a brillant paint-by-number scheme. I would love to see Horton mentor Detroit students on numerous murals.
I’ve been spinning this article ever since Valentine’s Day. I have to let it go. I apologize for the defects. I just love murals, and I hope to see Muralgate settled before the weather clears. I would love to put every member of the Detroit mural ecosystem on a tour to Muskegon for Massey’s presentation. Consider yourself invited. Muskegon Museum of Art. Detroit Artists Panel: Thursday, April 18 | 5PM – The Panel will be led by Dr. Hubert Massey with artists Shirley Woodson, Sydney James, Carole Morisseau, Richard Lewis, and Peter Bernal. Maybe I can get a good rate at the Delta Hotel for all of us.
Of course, I have homework. I want to know more about these artists included in the sixteen. Michael Horner, Nivek Monet, Carole Morriseau --- The sister or relative of the playwright Dominique Morriseau? Plus Ackeem Salmon