I am willing to bet that only a minuscule percentage of NYT readers would be willing to buy or rent or otherwise live in one of the houses on the blocks covered with Mr. Guyton’s “art.”
12
Okay, I get it, I see it.
I applaud the artistic determination and physical efforts to make such a project happen. I wouldn't know how to navigate the legal and political dark alleys and unwelcoming offices and hallways - so kudos to the wife for that effort.
But man...there is no way all that exposed material isn't rotting and otherwise attracting vermin and insect infestations. Yikes. How can that be dismantled and put someplace else, or go on the road? Good luck.
8
I grew up in Detroit in the 50’s and 60’s. My neighborhood was mostly Irish-Catholic. Holy Redeemer was literally in my backyard. Childhood was playing outside with lots of “war baby” friends, trading comic books, riding bikes, roller skating, etc. The movie “The Bells of St, Mary’s “ captures some of those times. I’m so sorry those neighborhoods are gone forever. If this artist is trying to recapture his youth, I applaud him. Just sorry his Animal House was burned down. Among my favorite pictures in the article.
11
Oprah Winfrey's ambush of Mr. Guyton on her show was typical of how she operated before she was raised to sainthood by some devotees. When I lived in the Midwest, before her show was nationally syndicated, her stock in trade was that type of thing. She was also able to cry at the drop of a hat, as the cliche goes. Sally Jesse Raphael and Jerry Springer had similar programs (before he went off the deep end), and they both came across as more sincere than Oprah. She is a brilliant manipulator. Her weight yo-yos, which should be nobody's business but hers. But she's made it a public issue. Several years ago she stated that she wouldn't be discussing it any more...and now she's a spokesperson for Weight Watchers. Meanwhile her magazine covers are designed to make her look thinner than she actually is. How does that affect her overweight followers? If she can't maintain a weight, with the personal chef and personal trainer she's discussed, and more than enough money to take care of any financial needs, how can they be expected to even try?
11
Re the clocks still there?
The houses in Detroit, in which I lived, are all gone. They have either been razed or covered over by a highway.
www.efn.org/~hkrieger/detroit.htm
I’m a native Detroiter and lived through the ‘67 riots. My old neighborhood in SW Detroit is a vibrant, Latino families Mecca. Holy Redeemer is still there. The church, Dulys....I can go home again when I visit. My old home is freshly remodeled near Vernor and Junction. Living there was a great childhood experience. If you’ve ever seen the movie “The Bells of St. Mary’s” you will be able to relate. Detroit was a wonderful city to grow up in. This article brought back many memories of the people and times of the 50’s and 60’s. This
7
This is wonderful!
5
We could throw it all into the ocean.
2
When I see a stuffed animal on the side of the road, lost, do I think "art"? No, I think trash.
All this is just a really trashy flea market.
4
I have lived in the Bay Area for over 40 yrs, but on trips back east I always feel a need to visit the homes I grew up in, starting with the housing project where I was born. The house we moved into from the projects is no more, nor are half the houses on that one block street. The two Catholic grammar schools I attended are no longer schools, they are homes for "unwed mothers". The churches they belonged to are torn down. The high school I attended is an abandoned eyesore. The universities still stand though. It gives me a good feeling to know where I came from, and where I am now. The past is always with you, at least a little bit.
2
I had an amazing experience at 12th & Linwood prior to adventuring to the Heidelberg Project! The Saturday I was there, after seeing the Rivera-Kahlo exhibit at the DIA, in early May there were just a few people walking around. It was quiet, and almost contemplative thinking about the history of the objects incorporated. I am glad I had the experience.
6
Thank you for this article! I met Tyree and Jenenne when he was doing his artist in residence in Switzerland and we have communicated a few times after. They are such a nice couple! Tyree is a visionary and will go down as one of the top artists of this generation. Also he has children's book that I would highly recommend to all teachers.
6
Thank you. Detroit has an interesting often troubled history. The future is promising, the energy is there and many are working hard for it to be successful.
9
Great article.
Great photographs.
Great artwork.
Thank you.
14
Way to completely blow an opportunity, Oprah.
18
She should apologize
13
#Goodwritingisgoodwriting! Mike , you have made your AP English teacher proud.
9
This isn't art. It's vandalism. It's a lack of respect for other people's property and lack of consideration for them, forcing them to look at this garbage. People like this should be in prison or in reeducation centres learning to respect other peoples needs and wants.
2
@Sparky "... in prison or in reeducation centres..." Really?
11
@Sparky Prison?
4
@Sparky
Hmmm, I didn't get he was working with other people's houses, but that they were in the same neighborhood. In other words, it's not even clear from this that he's trespassing.
If we're going to talk about law-breaking, prison and reeducation, I have a good candidate...….
3
Just because it's art, doesn't mean it's good art.
Some pieces are well conceived and executed. Many are not.
It's all Plan B.
Plan A is having a thriving neighborhood and city.
Let's take a look at Henry George's Progress and Poverty (1879) and get cracking on Plan A.
"People want to save a city. I say start with saving neighborhoods." - Msgr. Geno Baroni
6
It would be interesting to see the Heidelberg Project as a village in the midst of a large dairy farm, with other art and craft and education oriented villages dotted around. Though that goes against its present (but fading) urban context. However, with vacant houses being razed, and land returning to primeval green space, it might not seem so odd in a few years.
He fought the city and won in court and Detroit couldn't remove it. It was declared "art". When you see it up close, it's amazing. Unfortunately, a few houses were burned down by vandals and so much of his original work is missing. To me, what remains, tells a different story from what I thought when the original work was there.
10
I grew up in a declining city neighborhood in Chicago, and went to the public schools. In my high school, the room clocks and hallway clocks were connected to some kind of central system that was supposed to sync the time. They looked expensive and serious, made of glass and brushed metal, and anchored into the brick walls with permanence. Not a single one, in a school building of 2,400 students, ever told the right time, during my four years of high school, and no one from the school district seemed to care. I saw Mr. Guyton's colorful, rectangular clocks in the last photo, and thought of this. His colorful plywood clocks that have the numbers where he likes them, and the hands painted on, and are the shape and color of his own design, are sincerely just as useful as the clocks in the city public schools. And much more inspiring.
23
At,perhaps, the lowest point in my adult life, my mother urged me into her car and took me to see The Heidelberg Project. The experience was transformative. Healing. There I felt the ‘power of beauty to restore wholeness, ‘ to quote the title of a moving book in the rare book collection of the Detroit Public Library. There I felt peace and hope and a sense of vitality and powerfully positive intention in the midst of desolation.
Tyree Guyton and Sam Mackey made medicine on the streets of Detroit. I am privileged to have felt its good effect and to have been inspired by their work to elevate the ordinary and cast off to create beauty of my own.
40
I always think of what could be when I see photos of these beautiful old buildings and streets lined with what we here in a coastal desert zone call "volunteer trees." Having nature right there, growing lovely trees right outside your door, and soil ready to be seeded, nourished, grown, and harvested, all because rain falls regularly, then doing this instead, all this toxic plastic, synthetic fiber, paint, pollution, and leaching chemicals and calling it art, well it makes me wonder what's happened to our connection to nature on every level. Want to see what's possible in a neighborhood that's known better days? Check out Ron Finley - Gangsta Gardener for the Urban Community in South Central L.A. Grow things! Growing things is beautiful. That's how to honor a neighborhood's legacy.
7
@DMS There are many community gardens in Detroit. Also, Hantz Farms (http://www.hantzfarmsdetroit.com) is growing trees. Other urban farmers grow produce for local restaurants and there are also flower farms and bee farms. Just google "Farms Detroit" and you can find out lots about it. However, the Heidelberg Project is an art installation that has been around for years. Art and Farming can coexist in a city with as many square miles of underused land as Detroit And we're happy that it does.
31
@DMS
Not talking about farming. I'm talking about respecting nature.
@DMS Detroit is not some empty plain, devoid of history and people. It's the former center of American industry. Some of the old folks there still remember it that way. The Project responds to the site history.
Maybe you shouldn't tell Detroit people how to honor the Detroit legacy.
19
I remember going with a friend to visit the Heidelberg Project in the late 1990s. It was a surprising, thought-provoking, eye-opening, amazing experience to walk along the block and look closely at the sculptures and assemblages Mr. Guyton had created. I think it would be a very different experience to see this work out of the context of these city blocks in Detroit.
13
The article mentions the Detroit riot of 1967, but it is more commonly known now as the Detroit Rebellion of 1967.
6
@A Brown Call it a riot or a rebellion, whatever it was it didn’t seem to help Detroit very much.
5
@A Brown
I've lived in Michigan for most of my 72 years. I've lived and worked in Detroit. I've been to the Heidelberg Project. I've never heard anyone call the '67 riots a the Detroit Rebellion nor have I ever seen it in print until I read your comment. It is certainly not "more commonly known...".
11
@A Brown living in Detroit at the time I NEVER heard of
"the Detroit Rebellion" always known as riots.
7
Good for you Mr. Guyton! We all visit our family home in Detroit frequently, now occupied by fine folks. Sweet memories for big bunch of kids some who live just a stones throw away.
7
Well, I like it.
It tells me one thing.
There is hope after all.
23
I love it!!! Road trip!
10
What Guyton has done has reconstructed the neighborhood as neighborhoods actually are. After all is said and done, built, razed, and rebuilt, neighborhoods are not houses, they are not property, they are not material things at all: they are the activities and memories of people.
38
@Multimodalmama “...as neighborhoods actually are”?
I have lived in and visited dozens of urban and rural neighborhoods in many different US states and in Africa and Latin America and have seen few neighborhoods that looked as unattractive and unappealing as this one. Well, maybe some of the burned-out sections of the Bronx or the favelas in Rio, but those are hardly worthy of emulation, either.
Does anyone seriously believe that this “art” will attract investors, businesses and residents who will restore Detroit’s former prosperity?
1
@Mon Raytheon answer to your question is yes and it has. Unless you are willing to visit and see what is transforming Detroit I would be cautious in passing such critical judgement. It’s an exciting time in Detroit.
4
Great article. One thing missing though is how political much of the art is. Dozens of shoes hanging from a tree references lynchings. A bus represents the one on which Rosa Parks defied Jim Crow. Noah's Ark is also sometimes referred to as Slave Ship. The "old car chassis, painted pink" referred to in the article is a Hummer and was buried there in an anti-war ceremony led by Medea Benjamin of Code Pink. www.codepink.org. However, each piece stands by itself separate from its message as a creative and endearing work.
36
@Detroit Peter I read a little too fast. The shoes in the tree are mentioned and there is a photo of the Hummer properly.
2
@Detroit Peter, and we caught on without a diagram.
1
I worked in the city of Detroit Corporation Counsel's Office during Mayor Dennis Archer's administration.
The one complaint that resonated with me from the residents near these installations was their loss of quiet enjoyment of the neighborhood. "It wouldn't happen in the suburbs." They were right and they were ignored.
12
Ah grandparents can really make a difference. I smile when I think of guyton working happily away with his grandpa.
There is also a kind of very dark feeling I get from the shoe photo. These people were forgotten. In a way it’s the majority of our country that has been forgotten, not just Detroit.
18
Having lived in Ann Arbor, MI, at a safe distance of 40 miles away from East Detroit from 1967 until 2001, I can say...Detroit has been in a phase of reinventing itself since the 1967 Riots. Unfortunately, the American auto industry was the glue that held Detroit together. Now that non-US cars lead the auto industry—-and these cars are built all over the globe...a totally geographical flip—-Detroit will always be a partial ghost town from here on out. Never to return to the Glory Days of 1920-1980. Never. Jobs were the glue that held Detroit together.
This art is appealing only if you live far away from it. Those in Wayne County Michigan are more likely to see it as an eyesore and want to clear away the art. Then, in a few years, some group will get a gazillion dollar grant to have the 8th or 4th “Detroit Rebirth.”
Hey folks, this Detroit “baby” ain’t gonna survive any more rebirthin.’ Detroit is like Pompeii in Italy. The volcano erupted there in Detroit. 12 feet high layer of Volcanic ash covered everything. It will never be what it was because there will never be jobs for middle class people in this place. Detroit will never become the Silicon Valley of mid-America.
Move on. Tourism now defines Michigan. And the University if Michigan as well as Michigan State University. So, move on!!!
2
@CJF
From a Detroit resident to you, please stay away from Detroit (which I suspect you already do). Detroit is a fabulous place to live with wonderful, creative, hard-working (the forever 'hustling') people who are much more optimistic about our city than you. Move on yourself.
39
@CJF
I grew up in Detroit in the 40/50s, when it was at its peak economically and culturally. The Detroit Institute of Arts and the main library across the street were where I spent Saturdays at art class. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is still a world class orchestra and I studied with members.
I spent a few days in Detroit 2 years ago and found it to be vibrant and exciting. It is a model of the post-industrial age.
The young people moving there bring new energy and are creating a new life style.
Alas, we went by the house that we grew up in and it is boarded up, just waiting to be knocked down, or burned down. The transition can be painful.
13
@CJF Yours is a typical response from an outstate Michigan resident who rarely or never spends any time in Detroit. You give yourself away by the use of East Detroit. You mean the east side of Detroit. East Detroit used to be the name of a near in suburb now called Eastpointe. I was born and raised on the east side of Detroit and now live in a different close in suburb. Like so many people in the rest of the state, including the suburbs that surround Detroit, you have a mean, dismissive attitude about a place that is still home to thousands of people. Right now Detroit is a combination of two very different cities. One is as bad as all the ugly pictures of ruin porn depict. The other is amazingly on the upswing with new housing, restaurants, retail, et cetera. We who love Detroit despite acknowledging all its glaring faults are holding our breath because we've never seen this much sustained positive change in our lifetimes. No, it will never be the same as it was in 1950. But that's not all bad. PIttsburgh isn't the same as it was when the steel industry was at its height but it has reinvented itself and is now considered one of the most livable cities in America. Maybe Detroit can't reinvent itself and this renaissance will fail like all the others. Or maybe it will succeed in ways we can't imagine now. But it's kind of mean spirited of you (and so many people like you) to take such obvious pleasure in the possibility of that failure.
21
Travel back in time. Open your heart and see how an artist serves the past, present and future.This wonderful piece, embraces the artist, Tyree Guyton; Detroit's ups and downs, a couple of streets there known as the Heidelberg Project; fellow feeling; childhood memories and love. Forget that 'You Can't Go Home Again' because, yes, you can.
13
I don't understand all the negative comments. A famous writer, the name of which escapes me, once wrote: "Let your observations become revelations." I can stand for a long time in front of a photograph and imagine a whole history. Were I to come upon Mr. Guyton's installations, I'd be there all day. This is a beautiful and inspiring article.
23
I visited Detroit in 2012, and my friend took me to see the Heidelberg Project. It was totally unlike anything I'd ever seen before. At first I wasn't sure about it, but I grew to like it, the more of it I saw.
Good luck to Mr. Guyton.
28
I grew up in outstate Michigan and began going to Detroit in college in the early 70s. I've never stopped going, visiting several times a year. I've seen much decline and fortunately much resurgence in recent years. I first visited the Heidelberg Project in the early 2000s and was enchanted by it.
While it would not be feasible to have a whole city done up in the Heidelberg style, a small area is a great experiment. Look at Detroit on Google maps satellite view and you will see huge numbers of blocks, 1000, 2000, 5000, more, that have mostly gone back to nature with a few standing abandoned houses and fewer occupied dwellings. Allocating such a small area to a project that brings something positive to the city is, to me, a net benefit.
24
I was born in Detroit but was moved to the suburbs at age nine. At age 70 I am so happy to be back in the city, just a five minute drive from the Heidelberg Project. But I’ve visited there often over the years, usually seeing Mr Guyton sweeping the street or making art with children. He always had time to talk. I remember a lot full of vacuum cleaners and many dozens of pairs of shoes hanging from trees. The experience was always a happy one! Mr Guyton deserves his honorable position in Detroit and in the art world. (And FYI: many of us call it the Detroit Rebellion of 1967.)
25
@Crissiegirld lived in Detroit until 1986. Had a very liberal, diverse circle of close friends at Wayne State. No one ver referred to the riots as the Detroit Rebellion.
5
Great art often emerges out of troubled times and places. When there is nothing, artists fill the void.
Detroit reminds me of New York from the 1970s and 1980s, which was a place that offered much inspiration and freedom to artists. They were inspired to create their own sense of order out of the economic and cultural disorder. It was a time that was unique in opportunity and many of the artistic works made during this period are very moving and important.
Heidelberg Street is a blank canvas, not only for paint, but for envisioning a different way of thinking. Thank God everything isn't gentrified.
22
This seems to be bright spot in the otherwise drab and dreary life of the big, inner city. Without the Heidelberg Project there would likely be more urban blight, urban decay and nothing uplifting and no reason to give it another thought. Guytin is stressing that there is much potential and at least he is making an effort.
12
in the little town in Michigan that i live in we were lucky to get a grant years ago and were able to have a work of "modern" art installed along our waterfront park. caused a great deal of controversy in this conservative town. some were so upset they funded a life-like statue to also be placed in the park.
as to the Detroit artist i'm reminded of: "its not that he's out of step, but that he marches to the beat of a different drummer."
17
I was able to visit Heidelberg Street a number of years ago and thought then as I do now that Mr Guyton should be appreciated as a visionary. The houses were lively and poignant. Indeed bringing a much needed illustration to the history of Detroit.
18
Well, no, it looks like a junkyard where vandals went wild with spray paint.
11
This art made its mark, then.
You can see what you want to see.
81 comments - dude, that's alot.
4
@minidictum
This "special street" illustrates why it's not such a good idea to live in a landfill. What a mess. Sorry to all who may choose to take offense.
3
brilliant artist.
9
To some it may look like junk. To me, it makes me smile and laugh, and to that I say "Thanks Mr. Guyton"
22
This moves my heart so deeply- my Detroit memories are a place both rich & sweet with graceful elms, neighbors & their gardens, pets & kids. My library still welcomes readers, my school building still stands (unused) but nearly every house is gone, razed, burnt, vanished into an urban meadow. You could find our house by it’s tree: the only elm not planted in the curb box, but near the house. It shaded to broad front porch. Now the trees are gone, I can’t quite tell where anything was.
I hid under the porch, collected bottles for 2c each, smelled all the flowers, met my first beau and swayed to ‘Moon River’ at the pizza place, went to 23c monster movies, VBS at the huge Baptist Church. All by age 7.
Thank you for this art, this story.
28
@Patrise Detroit was the city of Elms until dutch elm disease killed most of them. Every street was beautiful.
9
Thank you, Mr. Guyton. Thank you for finding an opening that allows us to remember and value what has come before. Thank you for keeping your spirit and art bright during years when many tried to snuff it out.
Lastly, thank you, on an ordinary Friday, with its problems and stresses for giving me hope through your work and vision. It is the kind of hope that we all need.
Now I must end this comment to find a nice comfortable chair where I can enjoy my neighborhood from the front porch this evening.
18
The trees are certainly beautiful. When they're in leaf I'm sure the street look fabulous, in spite of. Here in always warn and sunny arid LA we're infinitely familiar with huge outdoor assemblages of junk and splashing paint all over rocks and wish we could have such beautifully leafy deciduous hardwood trees.
4
Detroit is an old amerindian word that means "I want to cry when I see it or even think about it".
1
Excellent article, informative, closely conversational and very soulful. More from this writer, please.
9
Who actually owns this property? If Guyton does not, then it's vandalism.
This seems to be all about his ego and obsession and he has actually made it harder for this neighborhood to be improved.
8
@Gofry. A rather negative attitude .... I believe he HAS improved the neighborhood
16
@Gofry
Nobody is trying to improve this neighborhood except Mr. Guyton. Just because you don't find it appealing doesn't mean he doesn't care about the area. And once again the artistic mindset is accused of self indulgence. I cannot tell you how many times I've heard people who know little to nothing about art, call it egomaniacal, self indulgent, "stuff my 6 year old could do", all the while showing their ignorance.
27
@Magan
I have a BFA and have been working as an artist and art director for 35 years...
1
I've found that the more ignorant people insist something isn't art, the more likely that it is.
23
@TK, since you know all about art and are writing to tell us that. Just seeing Mr. Guyton sitting smiling contentedly at peace in his chair amidst his many hours of busywork is what an artist lives for regardless and in spite of what anyone else thinks about it. He can probably look at each polka dot and relive the moment he painted it now from the comfort his chair which is much easier for him now than having to scramble up and down that ladder to get up there. For his sake this is a nice story. Insomuch as the "art", that's irrelevant.
1
Art is subjective. Some will feel this is art and adds to the artistic values of Detroit. Others will think this is trash and should be cleaned up. But I was saddened to see that the author of the article didn’t dig enough into the Heidelberg Project to ask some tuff questions and instead wrote a puff piece. The Heidelberg is a non-profit did the author look at the financial disclosing of this project over the years? The answer is sadly no because the author should of asked Jenenne Whitfield why so much of their expenses were catalogued as Misc, big red flag for myself and others. Did the author look closely at the arsons that occurred in 2014 (10+) or the fundraising campaign to install camera(s) that were never actually properly installed? The answer besides casually mentioning arson in the article sadly doesn’t seem to be the case because there are a lot of individuals in Detroit that believe those arsons were an inside job. I agree that the Heidelberg Project has been an interesting art experiment in a city that needed a lot during some dark days but one would hope a major newspaper would take the time to look at all sides of a project and objectively let the reader decide what the Heidelberg Project is really about.
15
@Bradley The writer is correct that the article fails to explore the controversy surrounding the Heidelberg Project. As a work of art, it is magnificent. I take no position on some of the issues and speculations of the posting, except to agree that not all value it as I do.
1
I've had 3 experiences that rocked every fiber of my body. One was standing in front of Guernica in Madrid when I found myself weeping. Two was being in an orchestra seat at the Met for an ABT performance when Vladimir Malakhov made a leap that caused 3,000 people to slightly gasp at the same time creating a low thunder that went to my toes. And, three, walking Heidelberg Street in the early 90's when spine-tingling emotions and all the good feels when one knows one is experiencing something way bigger than oneself and that authentic art can take us to. As a photo of a Pollack doesn't come close to experiencing what it's like to be in front of one and just looks like splashed paint, these photos don't capture one nano-second of what it's like to experience the Heidelberg Project - it's astonishing to be there. If it's not art, there's no such thing as art. Go, while you still can.
56
Pretty profound comparison. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
6
I read the negative commentary about how no one would want this in their neighborhood. I feel the same way about churches. Tax exempt conn artists fleecing their flock in buildings that I think are ugly. I drove through this street, I felt emotions but not joy.
15
@Harry B writes "I drove through this street, I felt emotions but not joy."
Maybe you should have gotten out of your car and walked. Things are different when seen on foot.
8
Yes art like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So 200,000 come visit. Calling it art or having lots of sightseers hasn’t done anything to improve housing conditions for residents. Sound like Guyton doesn’t even live there. Who wants to look out their living room and see graffittied buildings, piles of junks, etc.? Guyton is likely the only one who benefitted (and some art dealers maybe).
10
What all this project ultimately amounts to is a childish panorama of self-aggrandizement. It mocks the thriving city Detroit once was generations ago. I grew up in Detroit my last return visit there in 1993. Driving through what were once familiar sections of the city it was heartbreaking to take in what those neighborhoods had become. Endless blocks and blocks of neglect, abandoned streets, boarded up buildings that looked like the aftermath of bombed out WWII cities. The Heidelberg Project may have imaginative, amusement value but serves little constructive purpose in a city that needs so much more than side show antics.
8
Meanwhile, the elaborate art museum on the MSU campus in East Lansing is only attracting half the visitors it anticipated. Hmm...
12
looking at these comments. shocking how small our definition of art has become. this art engages on many levels and yet people talk about it like they used to talk about Jackson, Mark, and Pablo. you would think we have grown, thanks Tyree.
24
Yes, Mark, that’s the point. Great art is like science. Always ahead of the curve. Daring. Iconoclastic. Upsetting the status quo. Often not so much about classic ideas of beauty and proportion but more about jogging society out of its complacency. Which is why great art, like science, is often hounded by those in power. Oprah I am shocked at you. Coleman Young not so much. Politics and art never coexist peacefully.
3
One of the most moving stories I've read this year. What this man has done is incredibly creative in the face of rejection and adversity. This is what art is all about and in my opinion it is beautiful. Bravo to this fine man and bravo to the NYT for bringing it to our attention.
45
Kudos, Tyree! You created something interesting and beautiful. I will definitely drive over from Chicago and check it out.
27
How much better it would have been had Tyree Guyton taken his carpentry skills, taught them to other unemployed residents, and fixed up those old houses instead of painting numbers on them or sticking teddy bears into the windows.
Planting seeds around the structures -- preferably perennials that would bloom and spread -- might have been time well spent -- surely better than chalking up the sidewalk for yards on end.
For that he might have gotten funding. And he would have been doing a real service to the neighborhood.
People have a funny way of showing "love" for place.
13
@B. Art's purpose is not to support convention; plenty of things already do that. look again.
17
@B. There it is....someone telling someone else what to do and how to do it. I wonder if Brooklyn is better because of what B. is doing?
15
My patch of Brooklyn is better for my planting trees and shrubs and picking up and sweeping up after litterers and so on.
I've also called 911 to break up knifings. It's that kind of place. Perhaps you want more. I do not have to supply for your benefit the more I do.
Suggesting that people who want to revitalize an area actually work to do -- and whose skills might help others to do so so -- should not be cause for an ad hominem attack.
4
Lived in Detroit for 45 years... until shortly before GM, Chrysler and the City went bankrupt. Proud to be a Detroiter, but will never move back.
Very familiar with the “Heidelberg Project” which frankly was a bunch of glued together garbage. The Detroit Institute of Arts, which possesses a phenomenal collection of art (Rembrandt’s, Van Gogh, etc.) never got / gets nearly the press that Guyton’s “art” gets.... which has always been a shame.
Wish him well though... a good guy.
14
I don't recognize Detroit today only seeing it in print and docs.
If you want to call Heidelberg art then why not your local landfill as well because that is what it represents to me.
As a young boy I used to visit my immigrant italian aunt on the east side on French Road-5665. It was a working class street and neighborhood with a german family living next door. The city in the 40s and 50s was vibrant with full employment in the auto industry which also included my two older first cousins.
It is a shame what has happened to once great city. This so-called artist has just added tot he clutter.
14
@art Booo! It's not the 40's and 50's anymore and Detroit deserves a closer look at how society has let it down. The so called clutter you name is a result of a political system that keeps the poor poor.
14
@Kevin What nonsense. It's not the "political system that keeps the poor poor." The problems come from incredibly poor management of what was Detroit's most valuable resource and which made it so prosperous: the automobile manufacturers. Starting in 1957, the auto companies kept on declining because of their failure to make cars that gained widespread market acceptance because of high fuel consumption and poor quality problems, as pointed out by Ralph Nader. Remember the Chevrolet Corvair and Cavalier (I believe that was the name of this intermediate size vehicle) and the Ford Vega or Fairmont? I do. That's why I haven't bought a Detroit car since 1981 - I did not care to spend many hours in car repair shops. The Detroit car makers can do far better than what they did in the 1957 to 2000(?) period. They have great automotive engineers and fine workmen. Put them to work making cars that win acceptance in the market and Detroit neighborhoods will flourish as they spend their paychecks. Unfortunately, it may be too late as China is selling more and more vehicles.
1
My wife and I lived in the Detroit area, starting in the mid-80's. We happened upon Heidelberg by chance in the late 80's before it became "celebrated."
Neither Guyton nor anyone else was there. It was haunted, haunting and inexplicably beautiful. It was the work of genius, the transformation of mundane objects into an otherworldly landscape that defied language. I'll never forgot that first experience. We came back, and brought others, but it was not, is not, the same when seen as an "attraction."
To drive through urban ruin and encounter this technicolor oasis, aching with meaning, was one of the great encounters I've ever had with art.
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@Barking Doggerel. a disabled person who never heard of this and will never be able to see it in person, in falling across this article on line, my reaction was very much like yours decades later, thousands of miles away.
I am breathless. Overwhelmed.
Thank you Mr. Guyton. ....what an understatement!
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Would the author or the commenters praising the Heidelberg Project want to live next door to this? It's an eyesore masquerading as 'art'.
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@Stanley Gomez
I would, but then, I've always been told that I'm kind of a weirdo.
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@Dorothy N. Gray
Me too. I've been told the same thing since I came out of the womb. If I lived next to this, I'd be out there wandering and looking.
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Don’t you get it? No one has wanted to live there for a long time!
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Mr. Guyton answer “Every thing” to the question “What does this mean to you?” is profound. At one point in the history of the United States, Detroit meant “everything” to this country. It was a major force in our economy through the automobile industry. Look at Detroit and the American automobile industry today and we see a dismal situation. Detroit struggles to be relevant and we handed the keys to our automobile industry to foreign companies like Toyota, Honda and Nissan. Mr. Guyton’s Art begs the question “why?” This did not have to happen. With innovative approaches and a non-racist attitude, Detroit and the Big Three could have remained relevant. Mr. Guyton may be reliving old memories but perhaps he is pushing us to consider and imagine the possibility of a brighter future which would make not only Detroit but America relevant again.
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@Ken Ebert in New York State
The Big Three lost the lead in the auto industry because it was a big, slow moving brontosaurus...slow with a tiny brain. Then the foreign car market...as a speedy road runner—-zooming past domestic cars. Foreign cars lasted longer, had better maintenance records and cost less. Americans switched to foreign cars as did the whole world because they were a better value.
That is why Detroit lost out. Stupidity!!!
I lived in Ann Arbor during the decline of the auto industry. I know. It happened in my back yard.
Stupidity!!!
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I am so glad to hear that the Land Bank is now working with Mr. Guyton. A hub of artists and workspaces for art would be a major boon to Detroit. The city already has many many wonderful artists. People are just not aware how many there are because they need more collective public interface. Like our mural tour, each artist can have a bigger audience because they show together. I say to the city I grew up in, Detroit don’t blow this opportunity.
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Artists, all over the world, happily move into abandoned spaces to create their art. Then, when their presence contributes to the economic rise of that area, they are unceremoniously kicked out, and their art trashed.
In street art, if the rising economic tide doesn't destroy the work, time and the weather will.
It reminds me of those Tibetan sand mandalas: the artist creates something in full knowledge that it will not last, that it will be ephemeral. This reminds us that our lives are ephemeral, and that every moment is to be valued.
Thank you Tyree Guyton, for putting your time, effort and money into this neighborhood and this art installation.
(I was fortunate to visit Heidelberg in 2012, and still treasure my photos of the street then.)
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@julie marie Tibetan sand mandelas have a belief system behind them; poor comparison to a project recycling garbage. His prescence didn’t contribute to any economic rise for residents or the city. Is there now a school of Heidelberg art? Julie, wish you could have taken lots of it home with you in 2012.
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@ellie k. I understand what you are saying about the making of mandalas, but it seems that Mr. Guyton experiences something spiritual and reflective in the making of his art. He is meditating in a different way, perhaps.
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Thank you so much for this wonderful story.
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I visited on a spring day just after dawn. My partner and I were the only ones there, save for a gaurdian (was it Mr. Guyton?) who circled every once in a while on his bicycle. We walked around for a long time, not talking, not reaching for our phones, just taking it all in. It was incredibly moving and I feel lucky to have experienced it firsthand. Thank you, Mr. Guyton.
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It is hard for white people living in plastic suburbs to be reminded that their corporate overlords made the country into a plutocracy. If the relatively affluent tried to do something about it, they might lose their jobs and health insurance.
Why did Occupy fade while the Tea Party thrived? Why do we have a toxic clown as President?
This art, like Detroit itself, shows who are enslaved today: corporate slaves, in fact.
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@Peak Oiler Perhaps thinking and strategising like this is why Occupy died. Look how successful the right wing are pretending they like your average person. Beats being spat in the face while being forced to listen to teenage politics.
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Reminds me of Slab City in CA.
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I go and see the Heidelberg Project every time I'm in Detroit. It's one of the few places on earth that I've seen imagination come to life in an undistilled sort of way. I imagine that those who see this as "junk" or a distraction are probably caught in their own privilege and are use to seeing "art" in square buildings called museums.
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i've been here many times, driving through, street parties with hundreds of people all dressed in white, just wandering about and naturally, everyone from abroad wants to see this street. of course, this is my opinion, after being exposed to this for many years, hu-hum. i've lost the ability to see this as art. a tangled collection of discarded memories, cutesy this n' that, piles and piles of old toys, stuff…the same question keeps popping up; what is this? would this be viable in a highly functioning neighborhood? certainly not. only in this forlorn, mostly abandoned, run over by blight and poverty imbued area can this exist. perhaps, in that context, it is art, art as something developing and growing and changing, or not. i'll be driving through this neighborhood later this morning as it is a great shortcut from the northern suburbs to downtown detroit and, i wonder, will i even see heidelberg street today? not like brigadoon disappearing into the mist, heidelberg sometimes fails to even show it's face.
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For me it conjures up images of the Vietnam Memorial - the memories, the notes, the tokens left at the wall to honor the memories of the individuals whose names are etched on it, almost all of which are collected and kept in a Maryland warehouse.
From my perspective, what Mr Guyton has created is art but the lable is almost irrelevant. His creation is an fascinating, thought provoking, visually interesting monument to the lives that make up the history of that street in much the same way the items at the wall touch us, provoke us, and tell s astory of the lives lost in Vietnam and of those still missing.
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@Douglas Weil To compare this assemblage of junk with the Vietnam Memorial totally disrespects the Americans who gave their lives in the Vietnam War and those still missing.
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@Douglas Weil
I remember there were plenty of negative comments about the Vietnam Memorial when it was first built, too.
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Only in your mind. Amazing though that you can make that claim without knowing anything about me, the time I have spent at the Vietnam Memorial, or whether or not I have served or have a personal connection to anyone whose name is on the wall.
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They often say that art is in the eye of the beholder, but it also is in their feet as well. I am guessing all these positive comments would change dramatically if your neighbor suddenly decided he/she was going to turn her 4 acres in to a junk installation.
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The whole point is that no one would do that - living in a thriving neighborhood and turn their 4 acres into a similar installation - on land that had substantial monetary value. He did it here because no one else valued the land.
This wouldn’t be possible except for the circumstances.
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@Anglican, actually many of his neighbors valued their land and one famously challenged him from the audience on the Oprah show because she was not happy.
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@DoctorRPP Perhaps, but then again I cannot place myself in this situation because my neighborhood isn't overrun with blight and my community wasn't exploited and abandoned by big factories taking jobs where they don't have to pay good wages. I would feel pretty arrogant and foolish if I placed my perception, living in a comfortable little working class community with next to no abandoned homes, on this very specific situation. I am inspired by the idea of an artist being so attached to what was good about his childhood that he would want to memorialize it when everyone else simply left it behind in despair.
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I have to admit that I'm skeptical in calling this "art." However, I believe that one would have to experience it first-hand before making a judgment. Photos can provide only a very small part of what Mr. Guyton probably envisions.
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@Jim Exactly, Jim. If photos could capture "art" why would anyone go anywhere as they could visit from a coffee-table book. As I wrote in my comment and many of the comments have mentioned, it's an incredible experience. It pierces straight into one's being. The photos aren't doing squat. Hope you get to see it one day; suspect it'll move you as it has me.
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I love the fact that he persists in his vision despite the fact that so few people understand. I aspire to his courage
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An amazing display! The material end of lives left behind. Art with a flourish and a surreal twist. Mr. Guyton is telling stories by staging artifacts others once thought important but since abandoned; revealing humor and loss, tragedy and ridiculousness, and much more. He is obviously a creative genius, wry cultural chronicler, and poignant observer--and possibly the human WALL-E of our time.
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I was lucky enough to see the Heidelberg Project last year, in fact, I made a pilgrimage to Detroit on my way from Chicago to NJ just to see it. There is an authenticity to Guyton's work that comes from its setting and its context; it helps immensely to stand in the middle of it to feel its epic scale, its beauty, and its pain. I spoke to Guyton for a bit—he couldn't sit still so he took me on a walk around his assemblages, picking up objects and rearranging them, while he peppered me with very penetrating questions about racism, about God, and about who could lift his neighborhood out of poverty (see the photo of the house covered with the word, You, in this article). The site-specific installation succeeds on so many levels: visually, as social criticism, as play, and for what it has in its heart. Go now.
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I visited the Heidelberg project multiple times when we lived outside of Detroit. It was amazing, and every time I visited I discovered something new. While certainly not "art" in its traditional form, the Heidelberg project is beautiful in its own right, and perfectly at home in a lovely city that is experiencing, bit by bit, a long-deserved renaissance.
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I'm lucky enough to live nearby and just took a drive through the Heidelberg Project yesterday. Detroit is filled with creative street art and there's no better place to start your tour than taking a walk down this street! Whether I'm showing Detroit to people from out of town or just scared suburbanites, this is always one of the stops on my tours.
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I was writing a young adult novel (Paris Thibideaux & the World of Lost Things) about a boy in the inner city of Minneapolis who makes "something out of nothing," or art out of junk, when I discovered Tyree Guyton. He was kind enough to allow me to use pictures of Heidelberg on my web site to enhance teachers' and readers' understanding of what Paris was up to. What a treasure he and his work have been to the city of Detroit.
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I will never forget my visit to the Heidelberg Project a year ago when visiting Detroit, my long-ago hometown.
On a beautiful afternoon, about 25 or so visitors wandered up and down the street, as people would walk through any art installation. A Mozart concerto was audible from the windows of the Polka Dot house. We examined park benches containing household objects set in curious juxtapostion; a stuffed, tired-looking Micky Mouse slumped in a chair, wearing sunglasses and love beads; a mannequin’s arm attached to the wall of a house, holding a red handbag and a cigarette; a motorboat full of stuffed animals. Lots and lots and lots of clocks. I overheard French and German spoken.
I was riveted. I saw things that made me sad, made me laugh, made me confused, but most of all, made me think. Before I left, I started a conversation with a man who was casually rearranging a pile of stuff, who turned out to be Mr. Guyton. He invited me to decorate a pair of my shoes and send them to him, to be added to his Fence Of Shoes.
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@Susan Davies Nostalgia just ain’t what it used to be. Would you really like to live on the streets that the “artist” has covered with graffiti and cast-offs?
@Mon Ray
Yes, I definitely would! It’s glorious, moving and gorgeous :-)
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I understand how many people would not consider this art. It is hard for me to, and I'm very attracted to Outsider Art in general, if you want to include Mr. Guyton's work in this category. Yet in many ways this work is much more true to the spirit of art than the art deemed of value by curators in NYC, Chicago, SF, Dallas etc. I for one am glad he's here. And if I were a younger person I'd be moving to Detroit since it has the potential to be the greatest social opportunity for change in our current day - if share/created by all. Thank you for this article. Thank you Mr. Guyton.
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These blocks of art should be preserved by the city of Detroit. I would love to see them. Who wouldn't? Looking at them is a rare opportunity to look directly at the human spirit.
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These blocks of art should be preserved by the city of Detroit. I would love to see them. Who wouldn't? Looking at them is a rare opportunity to look directly at the human spirit.
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@Lawrence Robbin - City of Detroit? Does such a thing even exist anymore? I wish Mr. Guyton all the best, I love his art but it will be hard to defend it in a place that has been willfully abandoned and forgotten by the authorities over the last several decades.
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I think one message to be gotten from Mr. Guyton’s work underscores what you say. Bureaucracy doesn’t make a city. People do.
I see my beloved NYC turning into a faceless humorless collection of expensive glass phalluses, each one claiming to be bigger than the previous one just built. Is that why hordes of visitors flock to NY every year? NO. It’s to experience the energy and creativity of the people. As previously mentioned here, artists historically move into ruined and unwanted parts of cities, for the cheap space and freedom to work. Curiosity seekers follow them. Then pioneering renters or buyers, brave shopkeepers and funky restauranteurs. Then the real estate vultures. That’s happened in NYC countless times in the past 50 years. Think of the cachet of Soho, the Lower East Side, the Meat Market, any part of Brooklyn and now the South Bronx. I daresay almost any city has had a similar renaissance. That’s what art and artists do.
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It is ridiculous to believe that the artist’s assemblages of stuff constitute art, or that they somehow contribute to neighborhood revival or somehow make the adjacent properties more attractive or valuable.
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@Mon Ray Have you been there? I have. It's a fascinating drive, curiously moving.
They do not detract from the neighborhood. It will be a long time before Detroit's gentrification reaches that area.
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Do you know that if you call for a fire truck in that neighborhood today, they will not be able to help you. If you call an ambulance there may not be one available to come - for at least a few hours, maybe tomorrow. That information is the only ‘junk’ in Detroit we should be talking about.
Anything to put a little happiness and light into a very dark world. That’s how I think of Dotty Wotty and the rest of all those great pieces. That mans creative masterpiece has changed lives and perspective. What else is art?
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