Detroit sensibilities: the purple stage on Cass and Visions in a cornfield at MoCAD

…are on display with exuberant engaging street vibes in two current installations indoors and out; one on Cass with the Purple Stage supported by Arts Corps Detroit taking over a vacant lot, and the other a vast interior landscape of pimped out cars and dried corn husks called Visions in a Cornfield (by Destroy All Monsters, Ogun, and Apetechnology) at MoCAD, one of my favorite contemporary museums anywhere, near the historic Cass Corridor, it is housed in a rough industrial space refurbished and cleaned up just enough to present the work – a welcome tonic to the museum monument machine cranking out architectural wonders elsewhere.

Vision in a Cornfield is a large-scale collaboration that unites distinct creative communities in Detroit: the psyche/art rock band Destroy All Monsters, the urban arts group Ogun and the electromechanical art collective Apetechnology. The inspiration for the exhibition is two-fold. It is based on an unexpected encounter shared by Destroy All Monsters’ Mike Kelley and Cary Loren, which took place in a cornfield in Fowlerville, Michigan. It is also a reunion and reimagining of an unsanctioned art project in the streets of Detroit by Ogun, named after the Yoruba orisha of iron, hunting, politics and war.