Participants and the flagThe Stamelos Gallery Center presents an event in the context of the exhibition Andy T’s Urban Vision, 2001-2024.
Help complete the collaborative flag Home of the Brave! Instead of the standard white star, contributors are asked to create their own icon/symbol/logo that expresses their individuality or their belonging within a community that gives them strength to be who they are. Items must be no bigger than 3.5” in any direction and must be able to be pinned to the flag. Supplies will be available at the event to help collaborators finish their contributions.
Home of the Brave! consists of a hand-knitted rendition of the American flag, according to the flag proportions for personal use, measuring five by eight feet. It was crafted during a series of do-it-yourself gatherings known as Stitch n’ Bitch sessions organized by Jada Bowden, Michael Nagara, & Andrew Thompson. The flag was initially exhibited as part of the group exhibition Uprising, curated by Rocco DePietro and Gloria Pritschet at Hatch Art in Hamtramck, MI. This collaborative artwork, assembled collectively, draws its title from the lyrics for the U.S. national anthem. Instead of stars as symbols of statehood, participants in the workshop added personal items that indicate how a local community gives them strength. The sculpture places emphasis on the role of individuality, diversity, and locality in the formation of political identity.
Please go to this web address to learn more about the flag and how to contribute to it: https://bit.ly/Home_of_the_Brave
Home of the Brave flag, Photo by Brooke Palomba
Learn MoreAndy T’s Urban Vision, 2001-2024 is the first mid-career retrospective of Detroit-based sculptor and installation artist Andrew W. Thompson.
Covering over two decades of artistic production, this comprehensive exhibition delves into the underpinnings of Andrew W. Thompson's creative process rooted in the study and the reuse of everyday commonplace materials. As a sculptor, Thompson creates installation art from discarded items such as tires, plastic grocery bags, and mailing envelopes, and there is value to be found in that. Thompson, specifically concentrating on the urban environments of Kansas City and Detroit, gains an understanding of the world by meticulously observing and investigating the origins, uses, and distribution of everyday objects within shared places. Public space not only directs behavior, but it can also mirror and reinforce skewed societal hierarchies and power structures. Motivated by his belief in “art as a life-organizing principle,” the artist makes art in direct response to his immediate urban surroundings. Moreover, the installations made from waste are shaped by the physical design of the exhibition spaces that they are displayed in. Blending personal experience, research, and the analysis of social, economic, political, and cultural systems, artistic process turns into a unique journey of learning.
Clothes Pit Since You're Gone, Andy T.On display at the Stamelos Gallery Center are close to one hundred photographs, five videos, and selected sculptures documenting Thompson's installation work since 2001. The exhibition includes re-creations of three artworks—the envelope installation Everyone Says Hi (2015) and two untitled plastic waste sculptures from 2012 and 2017. In addition, two new site-specific installations directly respond to Dearborn's political districting and the architecture of the exhibition site.
Andrew W. Thompson earned his B.F.A. in sculpture from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2003 and his M.F.A. from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2006. A 2021 Kresge Artist Fellowship recipient, Thompson has been actively creating in Southeast Michigan since 2004. Curated by Nadja Rottner, an Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, this exhibition is part of the Arth 402: Museums and Art in the Community capstone seminar for art history.
The show is open from January 25 – April 21, 2024. For all press related inquiries, please contact Makenna Russell, makrus@umich.edu.
View More Exhibition InfoThe Stamelos Gallery Center is located on the first floor of the Mardigian Library at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. For more information, see below for contact information. Anyone requiring accommodations under the provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act should contact lacotton@umich.edu.
Taketori Tale,
Kyohei Fujita (b. 1921),
n.d.,
Mold blown glass with gold and silver foil inclusions
Gift of Richard and Louise Abrahams,
Collection of UM-Dearborn (Adp39),
Photograph by Kip Kriigel
World renowned artist Kyohei Fujita was born in Japan in 1921. He is known as the father of Japanese studio glass. Many of his works, including this one, were inspired by early Japanese boxes that were richly decorated with lacquerwork and mother-of-pearl inlays, and traditionally used to store Buddhist writings, jewelry, inkstones and brushes. Fujita's celebrated ornamental glass boxes revive conventional Japanese aesthetics in a contemporary form. This breathtaking piece was mold blown with gold and silver foil inclusions. Whenever asked by collectors what to keep in the boxes, the artist usually stated "You should put your dreams in them."
---Laura Cotton, Art Curator and Gallery Manager
