Carole Harris & Allie McGhee at the DIA @ Hyperallergic
DETROIT — Summer seems to be the moment for many Midwestern cities to launch new art festivals, in the hopes of using art as a driver for tourism and promotion of place — a time-honored formula stretching back to the first Venice Biennale and beyond. While festivals like the FRONT International Triennial in Cleveland and Open Spaces in Kansas City are investing heavily in attracting outside talent, and using the city as a framing device, a little upstart festival in Detroit, Detroit Art Week, took an opposite tack.
More of a self-guided tour and spate of weekend activities than an actual week, DAW is the brainchild of self-proclaimed “art world multi-tasker” Amani Olu, and took place in late July. Certainly a far more scrappy effort than the heavily funded analogues in other Midwestern cities this summer, it feels as though DAW is still working toward being a marquee event, but it was buttressed by programming at many of the cities anchor institutions, including galleries, and a special feature at the Detroit Institute of Arts, curated by Olu.
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