"Postcards from the Algiers Motel", 2017
500X Gallery, Dallas, TX
Postcards from the Algiers Motel, aka Postcards from Virginia Parkis an installation based on my research into and personal memories of the events that occurred in the city of Detroit in July of 1967. I lived in Detroit in 1967. I carpooled down Woodward Avenue everyday from my apartment on Cambridge Road in Berkeley to my job as a computer programmer at the IRS Data Center, then located in the old Studebaker Automobile Plant building at John R and Piquette Streets. My route took me past the Algiers Motel, the site of one of the bloodiest events of the 1967 Detroit racial disturbance. Little did I know as I drove to work each day that a highly significant historical event was about to happen in my neighborhood, and that its ramifications would remain evident 45 years later. I revisited the location for the first time in the summer of 2011 after reading The Algiers Motel Incident by John Hersey, a moving description of the historic events that took place there in the summer of 1967. I took photographs and collected bricks from rubble still present in the riot-affected areas. |
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Postcards from the Algiers Motel (partial installation view in "The Pit" at 500X Gallery)
Background: Red Flags (the streets); floor: John R and Piquette (the bricks)
Medium: red shop rags, paint, cast plaster
Dimensions of installation: variable; shop rags: 15´´square
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Postcards from the Algiers Motel (partial installation view in "The Pit" at 500X Gallery)
Background left: Postcards (the places); background right: Red Flags (the streets); floor: John R and Piquette (the bricks)
Medium: UV cured ink on vinyl banners, red shop rags, paint, cast plaster
Dimensions of installation: variable; banners: 30´´W x 30´´H; shop rags: 15´´square
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John R and Piquette (the bricks) (detail)
Medium: cast plaster
Dimensions: variable
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Red Flags (the streets) (detail)
Medium: red shop rags
Dimensions: 15´´square
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Red Flags (the streets) (detail)
Medium: red shop rags
Dimensions: 15´´square
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Postcards (the places)
Medium: UV cured ink on vinyl banners
Dimensions: 30´´W x 30´´H each
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Postcards (the places) (detail)
Medium: UV cured ink on vinyl banner
Dimensions: 30´´W x 30´´H
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Postcards (the places) (detail)
Medium: UV cured ink on vinyl banner
Dimensions: 30´´W x 30´´H
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Postcards (the places) (detail)
Medium: UV cured ink on vinyl banner
Dimensions: 30´´W x 30´´H
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