With Eyes Opened: Cranbrook Academy of Art Since 1932

Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI
June 18 – September 19, 2021

With Eyes Opened: Cranbrook Academy of Art Since 1932 (2021) was a five-year research initiative to explicate a more diverse history of the storied art school—often referred to as an American Bauhaus—that embraced a radical approach to pedagogy in the early twentieth century. Culminating in a 624-page publication that greatly expands and diversifies the canon of the school to include more women, artists of color, and those who identify as LGBTQIA+. The museum presentation included nine thematic galleries that juxtaposed approximately 275 works from different periods. Curated with Katherine Goffnett and Ian Gabriel Wilson.

The Architecture of the Interior gallery explored the outsized influence of Cranbrook Academy of Art on the development of modern and contemporary design. Works were shown in time period rooms, including pieces such as midcentury ceramicist Clyde Burt's wall piece, John Risley's Man and Woman wire loveseat, and Gere Kavanaugh's Zinnia Table and floral rug.

A site specific wall mural by Cleon Peterson wraps the Hartmann Gallery, which features works such as Tony Matelli's Soldier statue and a drapery installation of Strata fabric by Ruth Adler Schnee for KnollTextiles.

The Sculpture Court gallery featured pieces such as Marianne Strengell's Forecast Rug and works by her students who would become pioneers in the field such as Mary Walker Phillips, Nelly Homi Sethna, Olga de Amaral, and Alice Kagawa Parrott. Also on display one of Nick Cave's Soundsuits (near, right) and one of Sonya Clark's unraveled Confederate flags (far, left).

The Salon Abstraction gallery explored the genre across various disciplines at the Academy, particularly painting. Works on display include pieces by José Joya, Wook-ky=ung Choi, Frank Okada, and McArthur Binion, among many others.

The Object Islands gallery featured tabletop works drawn from various craft and design disciplines, including works by Carroll Harris Simms, Marie Woo, Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, Susan York, Lillian Elliott, Ed Rossbach, Anne Wilson, and Fred Woell, among others. A fiber work by Roland Ricketts is suspended below the skylights.

Design: Lorraine Wild, Xiaoqing Wang, and Tommy Huang of Green Dragon Office, Los Angeles.

The catalogue features biographies for 200 artists affiliated with the Academy, including Carroll Harris Simms. A rare alum, Simms received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the Academy. He effectively desegregated the institution in 1948 and would go onto to create an exceptional art program at Texas Southern University, an HBC, where he taught for nearly 40 years.