Red Bull: MONOLITH Exhibition Management
In celebration of its affection for Detroit’s vibrant and diverse arts community, Red Bull Arts presents Monolith, a series of site-specific installations created by Detroit-based women and queer artists and practitioners, on view October 8 – November 5, 2021.
Curated by Jes Allie, Monolith explores how four touchstones of our contemporary landscape (incarceration, grief, reproductive rights, and technology) permeate our interior lives. Each of these artists interrogates monolithic forces in everyday existence and encourages us to consider how we work towards cultivating a collective future. Artists Jex Blackmore, Jova Lynne, Maggie Nguyen, and Lauren Williams challenge traditional modes of thinking by creating alternate narratives and perspectives across mediums. Each newly presented project proclaims their creators’ nuanced values, interests, beliefs, and visions for the future. Leveraging Red Bull Arts Detroit’s Eastern Market building for the final time, the installations will be built in response to the unique spaces that have defined the program’s home. Monolith investigates the monumental within the mundane and subverts the singular gaze to celebrate contemporary art in a city run on inspiration and community.
It was my responsibility to manage the timeline of installation for each of the artists as well as project management for Maggie Nguyen's installation
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JEX BLACKMORE
"Sin is in the Blood," an installation by artist and activist Jex Blackmore at Red Bull Arts Detroit.
Photo by Claire Gato
Jex was very independent with her installation, only requiring an extra hand for transportation of materials and objects and minor technical audio work.
Screen shots taken directly from Jex Blackmore's Instagram
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Lauren Williams
"Making Room" By Lauren Williams
Lauren's design required several specialized skillsets from metal fabrication, sewing, and an understanding of interior design. She contracted the fabrication and seamstress herself, and the built the work to her specification.
It was my responsibility to light the work and hide the wiring as discreetly as possible with minor consultation on painting the floor.
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Jova Lynne
"Hope's Garden" By Jova Lynne
Jova was very courteous and open to ideas when it came to the installation process of her work.
It was my job to manage several elements in this installation. From transportation and placement of works, to helping with technical aspects such as LED and Projector installation, I had to manage and direct our team to completing the install in a way that best highlighted the work while leaving little presence of our involvement.
I decided to have holes drilled behind the lights, hidden behind one of the LED strips and routed the power through it. The end of the power cord then came out the back side of the wall, and powered by an outlet in a hallway. It allowed for a much clean installation and supported the desired effect of neon lighting.
(Right) A Cathartic Exercise in Rage is a durational participatory performance that invites self-identified persons of African descent to revel in the catharsis of the expression of our rage. This one night only event is intended for Black folks to come and exercise our rage as a ritual in a safe space. The exercise will be followed by libations and conversation about black life in rage.
We had built an extra wall ourselves (as seen pictured on the left) for the performance piece "A Cathartic Exorcise in Rage", which you can see the results of pictured in the right photo.
In order to install this floor work, we mounted a projector on the ceiling with the image projected downwards. We also masked off the projection area on the floor and painted it with two coats of white.
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MAGGIE NGUYEN
SYMPATH
Maggie Nguyen explores the relationship between technology and human emotion through sound in her interactive experience-driven installation. Through Sympath, the use of sentiment analysis technology and microcomputing, Nguyen has created a code and instrument that generates music and environmental effects based on the sentiment of the user’s submitted text. The code assigns each word a positive or negative value, generating drone sounds and light temperatures of different intensities based on the average score of positive and negative words used, allowing the user to create music from their written thought.
For Maggie, I was given the opportunity to work as a project manager throughout the development process, as well as handling the initial installation of the work itself.
As directed by Maggie herself, I sketched up a reference image according to her request and sent the images over to my friends at RAD_ish Studio who worked with Maggie to develop the case for the project.
(Left) Digital rendering created by RAD_ish Studios bases on Maggies concept.
(Right) Keyboard and case assembled after fabrication
After some minor adjustments, Maggie was able to make the final assembly and begin wiring.
Once the wiring was complete and she ran some tests, she booted up the program and started dialing in the projection
Final results
It was an honor working with these incredible artists, and by far the most gratifying and fulfilling exhibition I have had the privilege of working on at Red Bull Arts Detroit. I am incredibly grateful to all the artists, fabricators, contractors and our in house team. Matthew Eaton the Director, Jes Allie the curator, Patrick Delloro and Korey Lightford the installation team, and Frank Jonas for the paint work.
It was an honor.