Made in America
Most New Yorkers leave the City on President’s weekend. Schools are on winter break and it’s an opportunity to escape the cacophony that surrounds us and head to Florida, the Caribbean, or, perhaps east or west for a skiing vacation. With a direct Jet Blue flight to Havana from JFK airport, anyone who hasn’t been to Cuba is planning a trip there. So eyebrows were raised when I mentioned I was spending the weekend in Detroit. “Detroit? In February?”
Actually I have wanted to go to Detroit for a few years. Remember when Detroit was in federal bankruptcy and houses were abandoned? The Detroit Institute of Art, with a collection of art estimated to be worth over two billion dollars, was initially approached and told they would have to sell off their stunning collection to pay part of the equivalent billions in debt owed by the City to the federal government.
There were already the beginnings of a burgeoning contemporary art scene and when houses and entire neighborhoods were abandoned artists began buying the homes for almost nothing. It took years, but suddenly this city has been reimagined.
The Detroit Institute of Art did not have to sell its collection and remains one of the top museums in the United States. In the spring and summer of 2015 the DIA mounted a Diego Riva and Frido Kahlo exhibition that attracted people from across the world.
Shinola (shinola.com) opened about four years ago and is a company that manufactures watches, leather goods and now bicycles. I had an opportunity to meet the President, Jacques Panis, in Vienna, Austria at the Monocle Quality of Life Conference last year. I wanted to visit the store and the factory. One of Shinola’s latest projects is building an upscale hotel in downtown Detroit. It’s promises to be very special.
A few months ago at a meeting at New York Live Arts, where I serve on the Advisory Board, an art consultant mentioned: “all the young artists are moving to Des Moines or Detroit.” A few weeks earlier the Travel Section of the Sunday New York Times included Detroit in a list of the 52 places you must visit in 2017. I opened my diary, called American Airlines and made a reservation.
We need Detroit. It’s a city that represents the entrepreneurial spirit of America. The wealthy industrialists, who created the city, supported the arts and the architects who designed the many beautiful buildings, homes and schools that are scattered across the five spokes of the City. Many of these buildings are being restored.
There was another reason I wanted to travel to Detroit. I have always wanted to see “The Detroit Industry” fresco cycle conceived and painted by the Mexican artist Diego Rivera at the Detroit Institute of Art. The murals took eleven months to complete, from April 1932 to March 1933, and fill the Garden Court. Edsel Ford, the son of Henry Ford, commissioned them when he was president of Ford Motor Company with William Valentiner, the then director of the Detroit Institute of Arts. The only rule was that the work relate to the history of Detroit and the development of industry.
Diego Rivera and his wife, the painter Frida Kahlo, traveled to in Detroit from Mexico and began studying and photographing the Ford automotive plant on the Rouge River. The factory so fascinated and inspired Diego that in addition to the images of the assembly lines made famous by Ford, the murals depict office workers and airplanes, boats and agriculture, as well as Detroit’s other industries at the time — medical, pharmaceutical, and chemical. When the exhibition opened the people of Detroit found them defensive and wanted them removed. Edsel Ford, staying above the fray, commented: “I like them.”
You don’t just walk into the Garden Court and look at these paintings. You sit and study them. There is both a dystopian and a utopian quality in the work and they command your attention. Each viewer can walk away with a different interpretation of Rivera’s meaning.
Tyler Cowan has written a book entitled: The Complacent Class: The Self –Defeating Quest for the American Dream (St. Martin’s Press, 2017). In the book he makes the point that in an age of “hyper-individualism” there is a “spirit of conformism.” We dress alike and work in setting that has similar designs while claiming that we are the change leaders. Ours is a Pottery Barn culture.
Detroit feels different. There is an energy that is flowing through the place that is contagious. In each gallery, shop or restaurant I walked into I was greeted with a smile. A willingness to talk. Everyone wanted to share bits of history about the area. When people feel a sense of community there is hope for solving problems.
As I was traveling to the Inn where I was staying I asked the taxi driver about places to hear jazz. He named a few places, suggested a restaurant and then said:
“Mam, this is Detroit. We make cars.” That’s the feeling I left with. This is Detroit, we design and make things. This is what America is about. Innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship, opportunity for everyone and the tenacity to move forward when things fall apart.