The anti-Museum Plaza. 

 

Photo is at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/30/arts/design/30urba.html?hp&ex=1164862800&en=8aa649efffd96587&ei=5094&partner=homepage.

 

November 30, 2006

Architecture Review | 'Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit'

Seeing the Seediness, and Celebrating It

By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF

DETROIT — Ever since the great suburban exodus of the postwar years, American cities have experienced varying degrees of panic about their identities. One result is that more and more cities have taken on many of the qualities of suburbs to survive. Meanwhile, the once-smooth surface of suburbia has cracked open, revealing a dark underbelly that once seemed to be the exclusive realm of the city.

 

Remainder of article on NYTimes site

well its better than nothing i guess.

everybody seems to be getting a modern art museum these days.

 

Believe it or not, Dayton has or had one.

 

It was (or is) tucked in the WSU fine arts building, one room for the very small permanent collection, the other an exhibition space (which is really used by the WSU art school, but hosts or hosted travelling exhibits for the museum).

 

I came across it when I first move here and was involved with Presevation Dayton.  It turns out the museum director, a Philly transplant, lived in St Annes Hill, and was active in the local presevation scene.  I recall an evening stuffing envelopes whith him and his girlfreind or wife, talking about art and his plans. 

 

I seem to recall he wanted to grow the museum here into a real contemporary/modern art center, with broader communit support than just WSU.  He did do some controversial (well not really for Dayton as everyone just yawned) things like bringing in a Mapplethorpe/Serrano show (I guess the one that got the CAC shut down, or an abridged version of it), and things like that.  He was good at publicsing the museum and getting the word out that things where happening over at WSU & to go see it....

 

Unfortunaly for Dayton he was offered a the job as director of a private gallery in the Main Line, so it was a move home for him back to Philly.  The musuem sort of faded from view after he left, and I don't know if its even open anymore or what happened to the collection.

 

I sometimes think this was a lost opportunity get a modern art center there, but then, realistically, would that ever have happened?  Just another "what if".

 

@@@@@@@@@

 

The Detroit musuem sounds almost guerilla or 'punkitecture'.  That was a good article too.

 

by comparison, Mr. Zago draws inspiration from the squatters’ houses, performance spaces, local bars and grass-roots art projects that have sprouted amid the disturbing stillness of the neighborhoods: a kind of forgotten underworld tucked into ruined houses and storefronts surrounded by lots that have been abandoned for so long that they have become overgrown fields.

 

The architect had no interest in smoothing over the scars, which are worn as badges of pride. The gallery floor in what was once the car showroom retains its red octagonal tile; the other floors are raw concrete. Interior walls — collages of peeling paint, exposed brick and concrete block — have been left untouched so that you can see the traces of where they have been cut open and patched over during years of crude alterations. (Mr. Zago jokingly calls it his Frankenstein building.)

 

..how much is Zago dealing in a stereotype or an expectation of what "Detroit" is or should be?