“Selfie II” in Get Together @ Reyes|Finn
Reyes | Finn gallery is pleased to present Get Together, an exhibition opening February 25th that will collect and celebrate the work of over 150 Detroit-based artists, the largest show in the gallery’s history.
With invitational representation of artists at every stage in their careers, the show is dedicated to the creative life of Detroit, and to the significance of the region as a historical center of avant-garde art production. Get Together will present a dynamic snapshot of Detroit’s contemporary moment. Reyes | Finn is grateful for the generous contributions from all the artists, galleries, and organizations that have worked together to make this exhibition happen.
“Detroit is a deeply generative and creative place,” Reyes | Finn co-owner Bridget Finn said. “With this show, we wanted to devote time and space to creating opportunities to bring artists living and working here into each other’s orbit—to check in with each other and share more on what each of us are putting into the world.”
Embracing all aspects of the show’s inclusive nature, submissions for Get Together are constrained only by size: the Detroit artists asked to participate will submit one 30” by 30” piece to the gallery. Besides this single condition, the artists have free reign with material, content, and style when it comes to their selected work.
The show was conceived as an opportunity for up-and-coming artists to show alongside Detroit art icons, among them Allie McGhee, the 82-year-old called “a pillar of Detroit’s art scene” by The Detroit News, who will bring to Get Together his distinctive brand abstract expressionist paintings that pay homage to African tribal masks, the Ubangi figure, and free jazz. Other pillars included in the show include the textile artist Carole Harris, and Robert Sestock, who in 2015 gifted the city with a Midtown sculpture garden filled with his own work. The show will also feature the Neo-expressionist painter Tyree Guyton, who is also the subject of the Emmy Award-winning documentary “Come Unto Me: the Faces of Tyree Guyton.”
Artists also include Leif Ritchey—who “excels at pale, manipulated pours and textures,” per The New York Times—and Guggenheim fellow Beverly Fishman whose work had been described in Art in America as “powerful abstract paintings that address technology and the pharmaceutical industry.”
The goal is to showcase art that could only emerge from Detroit. Educator and photographer Eleanor Oakes will have her prints made in breast milk on display, addressing issues of bodily labor. This subject is also explored in the photography of bree gant, whose work is currently on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit—gant is currently tackling “the bodily experience of depending on the bus in the Motor City” in their art.
No less sui generis are the centaur-forward drawings of Ronald Griggs. Get Together is meant to serve as a springboard to a more sustainable future for Detroit art, by bringing together the wild and immense talent the city has to offer.
“There is a dedication to craft and experimentation in Detroit that is cherished by the people who choose to stay and work here,” Gallery co-owner Terese Reyes explains. “Detroit is a phenomenal place to work, it allows artists to focus on their respective practices in a truly unique way with few distractions. Occasionally it’s good to come up for air and share that work with one another. With this show, we set out to provide that space.’ It’s all about a conversation between artists – we’re hopeful this show will generate new connections and dialogues.”
Over the course of the show Get Together will be accompanied by performances, events, live music, audio works, dances, and video screenings with more details to be announced soon. Among the confirmed performers is Biba Bell, the Sebastopol-born dancer who recently appeared in La bohème at the Detroit Opera House, and of whom The New York Times has written, “It’s invigorating to watch someone who borders on wild.” On Earth Day, Saturday, April 22nd, there will be a body sculpture performance, “Earth Day Ritual,” by the 2022 Womxnhouse Artist in Residence Navjeet Kaur.
The opening celebration will take place on February 25 from 4 – 7 pm.
In mounting a bricolage of practices and styles, Get Together hopes to inspire conversations on the arts as an anchor for community and change during a century where anything feels possible. The show closes May 6, 2023.