Industrial Arts
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) is temporarily closed as it completes a giant project to renovate, expand and re-hang its galleries. Some works of art that won’t be moved are the iconic Diego Rivera frescoes that depict the colorful mix of people, machines and brute force that built The Motor City.
But the famous works won’t be left out of the museum’s massive makeover. When the DIA reopens on November 23, the murals will be joined by a new work by contemporary artist Julie Mehretu, who has been commissioned to create a large-scale mural that will pose a counterpoint to those of Rivera.
Mehretu (above, in front of Rivera’s murals) is a native of Ethiopia who was raised in Michigan. She is known for her complex abstractions, which incorporate graphic elements borrowed from architecture and calligraphy. Her style is El Lissitzky on LSD. Like Zaha Hadid, Mehretu excels at a whirling Constructivism that is better suited for 22nd-century Reykjavik than Vitebsk circa 1917. (more…)
