Germán Andino addresses Honduran gang violence in the #NoHumanIsAlien exhibition at U-M

VISUAL ART PREVIEW

German Andino standing next to his #NoHumanIsAlien exhibition at U-M

Comic-based journalism, where an artist tells reported stories with his or her drawings, has the benefit of addressing sensitive issues with a bit of emotional distance that doesn't always exist in the more immediate video- and audio-based storytelling. It can also give reluctant participants the freedom to tell their difficult and dangerous tales without a direct visual representation, which could put their lives at risk.

Joe Sacco is a pioneer of graphic journalism as shown in his many books, including Palestine (2001), Safe Area Gorazde (2002), and Journalism (2013). In Sacco's wake a mini-movement of graphic journalism has emerged, such as Sarah Glidden’s How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less (2016), Wendy MacNaughton's Meanwhile in San Francisco: The City in Its Own Words (2014), and Germán Andino's El Hábito de la Mordaza / The Habit of Silence (2016).

Indigenous Inspiration: Power couple donates Inuit art collection to UMMA

VISUAL ART PREVIEW

Kathy and Philip Power

Kathy and Philip Power hold Walking Bear—Unidentified artist (Inukjuak), ca. 1950, stone, ivory. Photo courtesy of UMMA.

Hail to the University of Michigan Museum of Art -- its Victor campaign just found a new leader in donations and it's the best.

Philip and Kathy Power donated $4.5 million worth of Inuit art, making UMMA one of the most important museums for creative works from the indigenous peoples of Alaska, Canada, and Greenland.

The Unknown Guitarist: Throwaway's Kirsten Carey is in the bag for avant sounds

MUSIC PREVIEW INTERVIEW

Throwaway

Brown-paper frag: Kirsten Carey's explosive avant-punk-metal-jazz fits in every genre bag. Photo by The Ottolab.

Kirsten Carey shreds on guitar like free-jazz icon Derek Bailey.

She also wears a paper bag on her head like The Gong Show's Unknown Comic.

That combination of avant-garde string slaying and performative humor defines Carey's art-punk duo Throwaway, which just released the songs "Bonathan Jyers" and "Exotic Bird" as a digital single and booked several shows in Southeast Michigan, including March 16 at Ziggy's in Ypsilanti.

Syncretic Sounds: Tim Haldeman's "Jazz + Film" blends art forms

MUSIC PREVIEW INTERVIEW

Tim Haldeman by Miles Larson

Saxophonist Tim Haldeman and bassist Dave Sharp are teaming up again for "Jazz + Film." Photo by Miles Larson.

When the Tim Haldeman Quartet assembles at Hathaway’s Hideaway in Ann Arbor on Sunday, March 11, to play improvised jazz while films are screened, the musicians will continue a tradition that is most associated with a pioneering soundtrack by trumpeter Miles Davis.

At the end of November 1957, Davis flew to France to begin a monthlong series of concerts, including a three-week stint at Club Saint-Germain in Paris.

But the trumpeter didn't bring the musicians who comprised his first great quintet.

Risk-taking jazz vocalist Estar Cohen can add "award-winning" before her name now

MUSIC PREVIEW INTERVIEW

Estar Cohen

Estar Cohen returns to the site of her Live at Willis Sound album with a concert on March 2.

Serendipity isn't something that just happens; you have to work on putting yourself in a position to make it happen.

Jazz vocalist Estar Cohen puts in the work.

"On December 26, 2016, I recorded my piece 'Moments' with a string quartet live for The River Street Anthology Project at Cultivate in Ypsilanti," said the Toledo-raised, Ypsilanti-based singer. "Ben Lorenz of Willis Sound happened to be in the audience that night. He told me about a church he was in the midst of converting into a studio and invited me to hold a concert there."

That concert was recorded and released last year as Live at Willis Sound, the second album by The Estar Cohen Project.

Sean Curtis Patrick's "Exo" is museum-quality art masquerading as a music video

MUSIC INTERVIEW

Images from Sean Curtis Patrick's film Exo

Images from the Sean Curtis Patrick's film Exo, a music video for Bana Haffar.

Sean Curtis Patrick's film Exo is a sumptuous work of art. It also happens to be a music video for Bana Haffar's song of the same name from her recent Matiere 12-inch single, but it could slot easily into a multimedia exhibition at a museum.

"Exo," the song, is filled with clicks, blips, buzzing, and bells that eventually build into a spiraling passage of ambient arpeggios. Haffar recorded the song live, with no overdubs, using a custom-built Eurorack synthesizer featuring modules by Make Noise, whose in-house record label put out the 12-inch. The song is abstract and lovely, just like Patrick's video.

Patrick performed at the Mini MoogFest in November 2017, and I spoke with him back then about his musical plans for that day; the interview below talks about his background as a multifaceted artist -- he also works in ceramics and is a graphic designer -- and the inspiration, research, and details behind the gooey and gorgeous images in Exo. (I embedded the video in this post, but you should watch it full screen and use good headphones for the full effect.)

"Border Crossers" asks viewers to consider a boundaries-free world in the tech age

VISUAL ART PREVIEW

Chico MacMurtrie's Border Crossers

Chico MacMurtrie holds a prototype for Border Crossers at the University of Michigan's Wilson Student Team Project Center. Photo by Robyn Han.

Border walls are only as strong as the robot overlords who can smash them to rubble allow them to be.

Sorry, that line was meant for my dystopian sci-fi novel. Chico MacMurtrie's Border Crossers project has a much more positive outlook.

Natural Process: Hydropark expands on its hypnotic sound for a new EP

MUSIC PREVIEW INTERVIEW

Hydropark band photo

Hydropark blurs the lines between hypnotic 1970s German rock and 1980s British post-punk. Photo by Elliot Bergman.

Evolution is real, but it's usually something that's out of view, the process hidden over the course of many years. But the Ann Arbor group Hydropark evolved before our ears -- and quickly.

The band formed as a trio in 2013 when drummer Chad Pratt, keyboardist Chuck Sipperley, and guitarist/keyboardist Fred Thomas would get together and create noisy instrumental jams that focused more on texture than melody, hammering out aggressive, improvised space rock. You can hear these practice-room freak-outs on four cassettes the group released in 2013-2014, two of which are on Hydropark's Bandcamp page.

Synthcity: U-M professor Anıl Çamcı creates a virtual universe with sound

MUSIC PREVIEW INTERVIEW

Anıl Camcı

Anıl Çamcı is a builder, but the materials he uses aren't wood and nails. The assistant professor of Performing Arts Technology at the University of Michigan creates worlds from soundwaves, constructing sonic cities with software and synthesizers.

This is Çamcı's first year teaching at U-M, coming from the University of Illinois at Chicago's Electronic Visualization Laboratory and, previous to that, Istanbul Technical University's Center for Advanced Studies in Music. But he's already managed to rework some of his compositions to take full advantage of the Chip Davis Technology Studio, a multimedia lab funded by the U-M grad and Mannheim Steamroller founder.

"Ruth Gruber, Photojournalist" exhibit celebrates the brilliant trailblazer

VISUAL ART PREVIEW

Ruth Gruber

In her 105 years on the planet, Ruth Gruber didn't half step anything. 

Born in Brooklyn in 1911, Gruber earned a Ph.D. at age 20 from the University of Cologne in German Philosophy, Modern English Literature, and Art History -- the youngest person in the world at that time to complete a doctorate.

By age 24, she was an international foreign correspondent and photojournalist whose life reads like an adventure book.