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Scarab Club, 217 Farnsworth St, Detroit, MI 48202: Wed-Sun, 12-5pm

Part of the 2021 Detroit Month of Design

Curated by Anthony Marcellini and Laura Mott

CLICK HERE TO SEE INSTALLATION IMAGES

Participating Artists: Jotina Ballard, Bobby Brooks, Stanley Brown, Sherri Bryant, Jerri Burks, Latashia Culver, Dennis Cenzer, Robert Duncombe, Latoya Elliott, Lewis Foster, Eric Green, Ronald Griggs, Ashley Hawkins, Rodney Hudson, Shawn Jackson, Darlene Mahan, Micah Marek, Ryan Mcdonagh, Ivory McKinley, Keisha Miller, Victoria Nada, Deborah Osteen, Alsendo Owens, Jocelyn Rice, Ray Smith, and Jeremy Taylor

From Periphery to Center is the first in-person exhibition of artwork by artists in the Progressive Art Studio Collective (PASC), an art and design studio dedicated to supporting artists with developmental disabilities and mental health issues in Detroit and Wayne County. The title references the acknowledgement that this exhibition represents a shift for these PASC artists, both as artists and as disabled people, from a position outside the artworld to a place inside or from a state of non-recognition to one of acknowledgement. For most of these artists, whose ages range from mid thirties to late seventies, this is their first exhibition. 

The exhibition features artwork by over 25 artists, showcasing a wide variety of styles, sources of inspiration, and approaches to making.  The artwork ranges from thick expressionist paintings by Eric Green to line-driven watercolors referencing archaeological masks and sculptures by Alsendo Owens, to highly detailed watercolors landscapes and cityscapes by Keisha Miller.  Shawn Jackson’s drawings representing iconic televisions shows of the 1990s will be seen alongside Lewis Foster’s encyclopedic sketches cataloguing mid-century furniture. Overall this exhibition represents a spectrum of Neurodivergent approaches to expressing one's lived experience. Organized by PASC curator Anthony Marcellini and guest curator Laura Mott, From Periphery to Center presents a selection of the dynamic artwork being produced across PASC’s two studios located in Detroit and Westland.

PASC was launched in January 2021 as the first progressive art and design studio in Detroit and Wayne County working with disabled artists to advance their independent artistic practices and individual career paths in the art and design fields. PASC is a program of Services to Enhance Potential (STEP) a non-profit service organization, founded in 1972, that provides services and supports for 1300+ individuals with disabilities and mental health issues in Southeastern Michigan. 

Laura Mott is the Senior Curator of Contemporary Art and Design at Cranbrook Art Museum since 2013. Previously, she worked in various curatorial positions at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, Gothenburg Konsthall, IASPIS in Stockholm, Mission 17 in San Francisco, and The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and was an adjunct lecturer at Valand Academy at The University of Gothenburg from 2009-2013. She received her MA in Curatorial Studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York, and BFA and BA in Art History and Studio Art from the University of Texas at Austin. She was named a Warhol Curatorial Fellow in support of her exhibition, publication, and public art series Landlord Colors: On Art, Economy, and Materiality, 2019.

Anthony Marcellini is the Art Studio Manager and PASC Program Lead. He is an educator, curator, writer, and artist. He has produced exhibitions, lectures, public cultural events, and projects, with a focus on social practice, public art, and disabilities, in cultural venues and universities across the world. For over 9 years he has taught studio art, curatorial practice, theory, and art and design history, at colleges and universities in the United States and Europe. From 2018 to 2020, he was the Programs and Exhibitions Manager of the Friendship Circle Soul Studio, a studio for adults with disabilities in West Bloomfield, MI. At Soul Studio Marcellini expanded the studio program and worked to align Soul Studio to the history and ideology of progressive art studios and disability culture. He introduced disabled artists into the Greater Detroit art scene and brought visibility to the artwork of the artists with disabilities of Soul Studio. Marcellini received his MFA in 2009 from California College of the Arts with a concentration in Social Practice.