Art in Detroit Public Places (Great Lakes Books) [Paperback]

Dennis Alan Nawrocki (Author), David Clements (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1999 | Series: Great Lakes Books

Guide to art in Detroit's public sphere.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Art in Detroit Public Places" is a guidebook to the many major examples of public art in metropolitan Detroit and proof that the tradition of art in public places is enjoying a renaissance. This revised edition of a Detroit classic studies 120 sites organized into five geographical districts. Each area includes a map to facilitate a walking or driving tour. The text provides a brief discussion of the history of each work, the nature of its commission, its historical context, and its relation to its site.

Product Details

• Paperback: 136 pages
• Publisher: Wayne State University Press; Rev Sub edition (February 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814327028
• ISBN-13: 978-0814327029
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,175,265 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Like Detroit... feels barren, February 6, 2003

By 

Michael L. White "impossiblefunky" (Westland, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Art in Detroit Public Places (Paperback)

I really wanted to like this book. Alas, it's a good idea poorly executed. Beginning with its misleading title (quite a bit of the artwork is found outside the confines of Detroit City Limits), Art in Detroit Public Places is a narrow paperback stuffed with photographs and descriptions of public works of art in the Metro area.

Each mosaic, statue, or sculpture is given a lone, poorly reproduced black and white picture apparently taken from the same angle by David Clements. How can a picture snapped from across the street capture the impact of something like The Heidelberg Project? A solitary monochromatic image eschews the splendor of the enormous collection of junk with its telephone poles decorated with doll heads and artist Tyree Guyton's ever-present motif of playful polka dots. I've seen inept tourists take better pictures.

Alongside these pictures, Dennis Alan Nawrocki pens sketchy descriptions of the works, their creators, and their current status. It's rather ironic that this is the second edition of the work as the writing is aggravatingly set in the present. One would hope that the language would be given a more indefinite time frame. Instead of saying "recently" or "currently," it'd be smarter to have dates cited.

Even the maps that precede each of the five sections of the book are problematic. These graphics are slightly better than if a dot-matrix printer had produced them. In addition, very little effort would need to be expended to list the location of the artwork in succeeding pages on these maps. While this might seem a trifling issue, it exemplifies how Art in Detroit Public Places is an overly ambitious, under-produced mess. (ISBN: 0814327028)