Friday, April 7th

Visit print exhibitions opening around the city on Friday night. See specific event information on individual shows below.

"Dreamland..."

6pm to 9pm at Ocelot Print Shop

"Dreamland..." is a 2016 print portfolio curated by Sage Perrot (Haypeep) that is dedicated to the nonsensical narratives created as we sleep. Included in the portfolio are 19 pieces that demonstrate printmaking processes like screen printing, relief printing, intaglio, etchings, and more.

The Type Directors Club TDC62 Exhibition

6PM TO 9PM AT Signal-Return

The Type Directors Club has spent over 70 years uniting and celebrating typographic leaders from around the world. Through their annual competitions, The Type Directors Club highlights the best of the best typographic work in both communication and typeface design from studios and individuals both in the US and internationally. 

Detroit Sequential

6PM to 9PM at Signal-Return

Curated by Ryan Standfest

Occasioned by the publication of “Detroit Sequential,” a tabloid-sized newspaper anthology of comic strips created by over 60 Detroit writers and artists, this exhibition will present a selection of the original works that were made for the project, with the intention of being reproduced on the printed page. Each contributor responded to the idea of the “daily strip”—a black and white horizontal sequence of four to six panels that was the format used in the comic strip pages of many American newspapers during weekday editions. By using this format, there is a focus on what comics can do best: compression and cheapness. Time is collapsed into a small space and the cost of printing is kept to a minimum with black and white reproduction.  Contributors used this basic parameter as a “rubber frame,” exploring issues of identity, geography and history. Copies of “Detroit Sequential” will be available for purchase.

Girl, I’ll cover you.

Chanel Matsunami Govreau and Raeleen Kao

7-8:30PM (performance beginning at 7:30) at Holding House Detroit

From ancient religious customs to non-spiritual trauma responses, rituals are how we heal ourselves and cultivate strength. Using a dichotomy of cutting and building as acts of healing, cleansing, and power, Chanel Govreau and Raeleen Kao will combine their abilities in costume design and printmaking by completely adorning themselves in prints.

Woodcut prints depicting masses of hair, a historic symbol of female vanity, both protect and obscure the performers’ bodies as they arm one another. This ritual of transformation aims to dismantle the perceived vanity and delicacy of female bodies forced upon women by a global, cross-cultural patriarchy. Further as they build each other, offering layers of protection and warmth, they will create a process of mutual empowerment that counters the competition and jealousy of internalized sexism.

The Work of Kevin Bradley

6–9PM at Signal-Return

The Church of Type is the letterpress studio of Kevin Bradley, one of America’s most prolific letterpress printmakers. From his early days at Hatch Show Print in Nashville to his 15 year run as the founder of Yee Haw Industries in Knoxville, Tennessee, his work has been instrumental in redefining the idea of contemporary letterpress.

JUGGERNAUT

6–9PM at Inner State Gallery

Opening March 10th, graffiti pioneer COPE2 returns to Detroit to unleash a powerful new body of work titled JUGGERNAUT at Inner State Gallery. Once again the New York City-based graffiti legend will showcase his many styles that have grown to epitomize the early 1980’s subway graffiti era and continued to become one of the most coveted art forms in contemporary art. Joining COPE2 will be the curated group show Action Shotz featuring some of New York City’s most influential underground graffiti writers.  Action Shotz invites the world into the creative process with a mix of tattered subway paraphernalia, aerosol cans, markers and tools of the trade that convey the longevity of New York City's counterculture art community.  

With over 40 new mixed media paintings, unique multiples and limited edition prints this is an exhibition that promises to be one for the record books yet again.