Kyle Hunt's new exhibition is about looking inward to see what comes out.

"The past decade has been a period in which the inner work I need to do has become more apparent and imperative," Hunt said. "It’s difficult work to dig through one’s past and start fixing what got knocked over, broken, displaced, disfigured, etc."

The Ann Arbor artist's What What Happened Led To exhibit at Ypsi's 22 North gallery features abstract explorations and offbeat figurative works from the past four years, "mostly oil and acrylic paintings on canvas, as well as some gouache, acrylic, and ink paintings on paper," he said.

The exhibition runs from June 27 to July 25, with an opening reception on opening night, where Hunt will display another talent: poetry.

"The poems and the visual art all represent what it’s like for me to start rebuilding after a storm has blown through," Hunt said. "The journey of doing that difficult but necessary work."

But if poetry isn't your thing, don't fret.

"It will truly be a short reading. While I have written some poems since grad school, most of my time has been spent making paintings and drawings, so that’s the focus of the show," Hunt said. "I don’t want anyone tired from a long poetry reading, left with little energy for art on the walls."

The dynamic work in What What Happened Led To is infused with energy, but not directly or aggressively. The images can come across like scary dreams, but they are painted in pastel-oriented colors, giving the works a strange blend of subtle fear but no loathing. It's more like lucid dreaming, where you take charge of your sleeptime imagination and ride out the sensation—even if it's a nightmare—as if you're an omniscient narrator. 

I asked Hunt a few questions to understand his work, where the "bad dream has infiltrated a good dream."

Jeff Dunn didn't mean to become a go-to photographer for the Southeast Michigan jazz scene. He was just a guy who started taking his camera to jam sessions around 2014 after being a fan of the "sound of surprise" since the early 1970s.

"The first time I went to [Detroit's] Baker's Keyboard Lounge in 1973, I was hooked," Dunn told Pulp in a 2018 interview. "I've been addicted to live jazz performances ever since."

Now he's the house photographer for the Detroit Jazz Festival Foundation, a regular presence at concerts from the Motor City to Tree Town, and the focus of a new exhibit at Argus Museum in Ann Arbor.

Jeff Dunn - Jazz Photography runs June 2-27, offering 38 shots by the St. Clair Shores resident and retired Wayne State computer programmer/web developer.

The exhibit is tucked into a narrow hallway with a slight zig-zag, but there's enough room to step back from each photo and imagine the 71-year-old Dunn's placement for each shot. The description plates for each image feature enthusiastic prose from the photographer about his subjects, revealing Dunn's fan-first appreciation of jazz.

Best friends don't always have exactly the same interests, but it can be especially fun when what excites one pal complements the thing the other enjoys most.

For Batcat and Al the Ghost, one literally feeds the other: Al loves to cook and Batcat loves to eat. What happens, though, when their favorite hobbies take on a competitive edge?

Batcat: Cooking Contest!, the third volume of Meggie Ramm's early middle-grade graphic novel series, finds the colorful residents of Spooky Island testing their respective skills as part of a local festival.

The book is fun and cute, and it explores Big Emotions.

Ramm will launch Batcat: Cooking Contest! with a signing session at Vault of Midnight in Ann Arbor on Saturday, April 26, 4-6 pm. (They will also be at Sidetrack Books in Royal Oak on April 19 and at Constellation Cat Cafe in Lansing on May 2.)

I spoke with Ramm about the latest book, the origins of Batcat, and what they hope kids and parents will take away from volume three.

The Guild of Artists & Artisans' Gutman Gallery is a fashion-forward exhibition space—at least from April 4 to May 17 when the glam squad comes to town.

The Ann Arbor gallery is hosting In Style: Fashion + Wearables, which features 26 designers and artists working in a variety of media. These dedicated followers of fashion were selected by guest juror Cheryl Zemke, proprietor of the Wyandotte boutique that bears her name.

There's an opening reception at Gutman Gallery on Friday, April 4 from 6-8 pm, with The Guild of Artists & Artisans inviting you to this free event with a simple request: "dress to impress." (In my case, that means my finest sweatpants.) DJ Batz will spin jams, the South African winemaker Babylonstoren will pour the vino, and Sweet Heather Anne cakes and TeaHaus will provide some nosh and drinkables. (There's also a "live mannequin fashion show," which sounds like nightmare material—but if things get hairy, I'll be wearing my sweatpants and can dash away tout suite because I love depeche mode.)

Some of the works in In Style: Fashion + Wearables include: 

Sasha Gusikhin founded NeuroArts Productions in response to a tragedy.

Luke Balstad was Gusikhin’s best friend, and a straight-A student at Harvard, but he also knew that he needed mental help assistance. Balstad was in therapy, was honest and open about his bipolar condition, and was attended to by a supportive network—but it still ended with him dying by suicide in 2022.

Balstad was being treated with medications—he tried at least 10—and therapy in the standardized modern way, but Gusikhin believes that let her friend slip through the cracks.

“No amount of checking in on Luke would have been able to save him," says Gusikhin, a University of Michigan senior double majoring in biopsychology, cognition, and neuroscience along with voice performance. "He had all of this care and yet there was all this impression with this one size fits all, this ‘let’s try this, and that, and that.' When we do that we are never attuned to: ‘What if this medication [causes a] toxic reaction to that person’s brain chemistry?’ It’s very dangerous, and it can cause very dangerous situations and even loss of life in this case.”

Gusikhin's NeuroArts Productions organizes multidisciplinary arts events to promote mental health education and reform.

Even as I accepted the assignment to attend and write about asses.masses—a daylong collaborative video game art installation brought to Ann Arbor on February 15-16 by UMS—I wondered why I’d made this choice.

It would take me away from my family for nearly an entire Saturday (the program ran from 1-9:30 pm); I’d have to drive from Farmington to Stamps Auditorium on a snowy, freezing February day, all too aware that I’d also be hosting guests in my home the next morning; I had no idea what kind of food would be provided at the event; and while I’m an absolute puzzle fiend, I’m decidedly not a gamer. (The whole idea of Twitch, where viewers can watch others play video games, is something I still struggle to wrap my head around.)

If I’ve learned anything in recent years, though, it’s that I should always follow my curiosity, and I’d repeatedly wondered what this collective all-day video game experience would look and feel like.

My short answer, after attending asses.masses? Community-building. But let’s start with the basics.

Created by Canadian duo Patrick Blendarn and Milton Lim, the game’s narrative involves a herd of donkeys who have been replaced, as workers, by machines, so many of them decide to confront their human overlords and push back against their (existential) obsolescence.

La Raza Art and Media Collective, 1975 to Today, a new exhibit at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA), highlights creative Latinx students and faculty who have influenced the campus for decades but whose presence is too often overlooked.

The La Raza Art and Media Collective (RAMC) was a student group from 1975 to 1977, formed by Ana Cardona, Michael J. Garcia, Jesse Gonzales, Julio Perazza, George Vargas, S. Zaneta Kosiba Vargas, and Zaragosa Vargas. RAMC organized cultural gatherings and art exhibits, and between 1976-1977, the group also produced a journal of Latinx essays, poetry, and art.

RAMC grew out of the late '60s Latinx political movement. Allied with other student groups, RAMC advocated for Latinx and Chicanx students, combating discrimination and stereotypes while building community. But as La Raza members started to move on from college, the group disbanded and became memory-holed to a certain degree even as other Latinx groups emerged.

What does it mean to create a flourishing society? What does it mean to be American? What does it mean to be an artist in America, to produce artwork about the American condition?

These are a few of the questions posed to the audience in Hey, We Need to Talk!, an exhibit at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA). Curated by artist Philippa Pham Hughes, the current visiting artist for arts and civic engagement, the project requests that visitors participate in a dialogue about their views on topics such as: How do we build a sustainable future? How do we build meaningful connections in our communities? How do we overcome division?

Hughes has adorned the Eleanor Noyes Crumpacker Gallery with a custom decorative floral wallpaper. It is not just any floral wallpaper, but a composite of 50 individual flowers, representing each state flower. Not only that but it was designed by Ouizi (Louise Jones), an artist revered both internationally and locally for her large-scale floral murals, one of which can be found at 200 South Ashley Street. In a short essay, Hughes writes on the significance of the floral motif, noting their symbolic use throughout history in a variety of contexts, many of which included political revolution, making them “beautiful and powerful symbols of resistance, revolution, and resilience.”

A new art installation in Liberty Plaza intends to spark play and social interaction in Ann Arbor.

Oscillation relies on people’s movements to create different colors, sounds, and pitches when they interact with it. The installation features five crystal-shaped pieces and acts like a theremin—a musical instrument that you can play without touching it.

“The idea of a theremin interested us because of how it could be played with motion, and we had been wanting to think of a way to enlarge that interaction in the public space,” said Ryan Swanson, whose Brooklyn, New York-based design studio, The Urban Conga, created Oscillation.

“This work felt like the perfect opportunity to develop that interaction to become a public instrument for communal interaction.”

As part of that communal interaction, people will be able to experience Oscillation starting January 17.

The Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority (DDA) is collaborating with The Urban Conga and its touring partner Creos to bring the installation to the city through March 16.

The Monday Mix is an occasional roundup of compilations, live recordings, videos, podcasts, and more by Washtenaw County-associated artists, DJs, radio stations, and record labels.

This edition features an interview with Kerrytown Concert House's Artistic & Executive Director Monica Swartout-Bebow on Michigan Creates; a chat with Ann Arbor cellist Thor Sigurdson on Music Un-Tuxed; two short promo videos for Ann Arbor Art Center's 2024 public art projects; Blue LLama concert live streams; and the numerous arts documentaries created for the Ann Arbor 200 birthday celebration.