Stateside interview with former DIA and MOCAD curators
As the nation grapples with how its institutions treat people of color, the surge in conversations about how systemic racism exists in our social structures isn’t confined to the criminal justice or health systems. It’s also affecting the arts community, including in Detroit, where current and former staff and volunteers at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) and the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) have formed public campaigns asking for change at these institutions.
Leni Sinclair
When: Through April 18 Motor City Underground presents the photographs of Leni Sinclair, best known for her work chronicling radical movements of Detroit since the 1960s. A founding member of the White Panthers, Sinclair is both an activist and longtime witness to social justice organizing in Detroit. Her images are among the most iconic and thorough records of the city’s countercultural history. 42.35370;-83.06156
Detroit Youth Association, B&W photograph, undated. It s not a photo of Iggy Pop that is iconic Detroit photographer and activist Leni Sinclair s favorite of her prolific collection, much of which spans more than six decades of American counterculture, revolution, and rock n roll. Nor is it a capture of Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Prince, Bob Marley, John Lennon, the MC5, John Coltrane, Jimi Hendrix, Fela Kuti, the Rolling Stones, or ex-husband and marijuana activist John Sinclair, and, actually, none of her images from the 1967 Detroit rebellion, or salutes from the Black Panther Party, or intimate snaps from inside the White Panther Party, which she co-founded, made the cut for her most coveted image, either. In fact, Sinclair s favorite photograph isn t one she has taken but one that defines her journey, legacy, and the badassness she possesses and is far too modest to acknowledge, which makes her al
by Alan Stamm
Leni Sinclair snapped this White Panther Party group portrait in Ann Arbor during the early 1970s. Four other images from her exhibit are below. (Photos: MOCAD)
Originally posted Feb. 2. A photographer with a prominent role in Detroit s 1960s-70s cultural history is the focus of a 10-week exhibition opening Friday at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD). Leni Sinclair: Motor City Underground is her first solo show at a U.S. museum. The 80-year-old artist, author and social justice organizer still lives in Detroit, where she married politically active poet and jazz critic John Sinclair in 1965 at a Cass Avenue church. Three years later they and a friend started the White Panther Party. (The Sinclairs had two children and divorced in 1977. He s also still a Detroiter.)