Canvas Detroit (Painted Turtle) - Hardcover

Julie Pincus; Nichole Christian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0814340237 ISBN 13: 9780814340233

Publisher: Wayne State University Press, 2014

Synopsis

A compelling look at the contemporary art and artists that are transforming Detroit's physical landscape.

About this title

About the Author:

Julie Pincus is an award-winning graphic designer specializing in brand identity and communications for Fortune 500 companies, nonprofit arts organizations, and foundations. She received her BFA from the University of Michigan and her MFA from Yale University. Born and raised in metropolitan Detroit, Julie now lives in New York City with her husband.

Nichole Christian is a writer and Detroit native who began her career as a staff member for some of the nation's top news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Time magazine, the New York Times, and the Detroit Free Press. Her work appears in the books Dear Dad: Reflections on Fatherhood and Portraits 9/11/01: The Collected "Portraits of Grief" from the New York Times. She holds a BA in journalism from Wayne State University's Journalism Institute for Media Diversity and lives in suburban Detroit with her husband and daughter.

Review:

The sheer size, the breadth of this place. . . . The cascading histories, shining at one moment, crumbling the next. The vast prairie lands within the metropolis. The freeways that divided neighborhoods where people lived and also no longer did. And the fist of Joe Louis-enormous! All of it an incitement to make art. (Linda Yablonsky)

You don't often get a book to review that makes you drop everything and simply say, 'Wow.' But Canvas Detroit almost made me miss this magazine's June deadline because I kept picking it up. Julie Pincus and Nichole Christian take an amazing journey across Detroit's thriving art scene. . . But it's much more than a picture book, rounded out with artist profiles and contributions from John Gallagher, Rebecca Hart, Linda Yablonsky, and others who cover the art and architecture beat in Detroit and Beyond. This is a coffee-table-worthy book that has substance to keep you coming back for more. (Steve WIlke Hour Detroit 2014-06-01)

Lavishly illustrated with 450 photos, the nearly 300-page book profiles dozens of artists and was written by Julie Pincus and Nichole Christian, with additional essays by others, including Free Press reporter John Gallagher. (Mark Stryker Detroit Free Press 2014-05-15)

Canvas Detroit could have easily just have been a photo book of Detroit street art. Instead, designer Julie Pincus and author Nichole Christian were determined to tell the stories of the people behind the art, as well as their individual motives. The temporal nature of street art is why a book like Canvas Detroit is so important. It's also important to
catalog these artists because many of them seem more concerned with unleashing their own artistic bug than with promoting their work.

(Lee DeVito Metro Times 2014-04-15)

Their book is looking more and more like a bestseller. (The Examiner 2014-06-01)

Canvas Detroit is doing what we all know needs to be done for Detroit: taking its reputation of being dark and dangerous and countering that by displaying the energy, determination, generosity, and sheer talent of the artists who are flooding the city . . . Together, these authors have crafted a book which is a beautiful collection of artwork in many forms including murals, sculptures, portraits, light projections, wearable art and installations. (Emily Pape Real Detroit Weekly 2014-04-05)

An absolute "must-have" for twenty-first century artbook shelves! (James A. Cox Midwest Book Review 2014-05-01)

The Detroit 'Canvas' includes 'large-scale and small-scale murals, sculptures,portraits, light projections, wearable art,' and various installations, some "on and inhouses, garages, factories, alleyways, doors, and walls." Collectively, said Pincus, they offer a somewhat abstract message that Detroit is indeed alive and well - at least from an artistic sense.
Pincus, of course, deserves credit for helping convey that fact. The book, which offers a riveting and inspiring look at the creators of street art, is a testament to her own ingenuity and determination, of her desire and willingness to tell a story that begged to be told.

(Tom Kirvan Detroit Legal News 2014-12-19)

A masterful achievement five years in the making, Canvas Detroit, conceived and designed by Julie Pincus and written by Nichole Christian captures rare moments in Detroit's ever-changing landscape through portraits of artists who have tested the limits of the city's wild and public spaces. (My Jewish Detroit My Jewish Detroit 2014-12-01)

About this edition

• Publisher: Wayne State University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0814340237
• ISBN 13: 9780814340233
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 296