The Michigan Daily | michigandaily.com | Thursday, October 15, 2015
the b-side
By Gillian Jakab
Daily Arts Writer
B
30-Year Anniversary
The
Heidelberg
Project
celebration at UMMA
2016 marks the 30th anniversary of Tyree Guyton’s
site-specific art installation on the east side of Detroit,
The Heidelberg Project, and everyone wants in on the
celebration. Well, maybe not the arsonists who torched
the project last year, or the opponents who bulldozed it
or those who brought Mr. Guyton to trial over the past
three decades. But the obstacles and strife are all the
more reason to celebrate the reach, energy and resilience
of Guyton’s irrepressible oeuvre.
What has come to be known as the Heidelberg
Project is two city blocks of ever-evolving, art-adorned
houses, found object sculptures and interior urban-folk
museum spaces that have stood as playfully as they have
steadfastly against the blight of inner-city decay. It is
named for Heidelberg Street, in Detroit’s McDougall-
Hunt neighborhood, the block where it began and on
which Guyton grew up.
The University of Michigan Museum of Art has
curated an exhibition titled “The Art of Tyree Guyton: A
Thirty-Year Journey” since August and will run through
Jan. 3, 2016. It is presented in tandem with the Depart-
ment of Afroamerican and African Studies’ current
exhibition “What Time Is It? Tyree Guyton, New Work”
running through Nov. 6. Many ancillary events — in-
cluding gallery talks, a dialogue with Tyree and his wife
Jenenne Whitfield the other week at UMMA and a Q&A
with student organization Stamps in Color — a commu-
nity of students of color in the School of Art & Design at
the University — have provided spaces for students and
Ann Arborites to engage with Tyree and his work. On
Sunday, Oct. 18 there will be a guided tour, and a dis-
cussion with Taubman faculty on art and urban planning,
and “In Conversation: The Art of Tyree Guyton: From
the Street to the Studio” will take place Nov. 8.
“Well, it’s a funny kind of retrospective because it’s
an outdoor dynamic project that changes constantly,”
said UMMA exhibition curator MaryAnn Wilkinson.
“Not only because of Tyree’s work, but because it gets
torn down sometimes or it gets burned down some-
times. I mean it’s always changing and you can’t really
do a timeline the way that you can do in a typical art
exhibition where you can start with the artist’s early
work and you know the end. You can’t really do that
with this because it doesn’t — somehow it misses the
point to do that.”
See HEIDELBERG, Page 2B