Tuesday, May 13
TAKAAT (of Mdou Moctar)
Zekkereya El-magharbel
Doors 7: 30 pm | $15 in advance or $18 at entry
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TAKAAT (pronounced tuh-cot), meaning “noise” in the Tuareg language Tamashek, is the trio of Ahmoudou Madassane, Mikey Coltun, and Souleymane Ibrahim, also known as the rhythm section of Mdou Moctar. TAKAAT is sonic chaos, improvisation, freedom of exploration, and the punk styles of bands such as Fugazi and Unwound, all mixed together with the guitar music from the Sahel.
Wednesday, May 14, 7 pm
Poetry Reading by Norman Fischer, Chris Tysh and Nazifa Islam
Free admission | Inside our gallery
Norman Fischer is a prolific poet, essayist, and Zen Buddhist priest. His latest titles are Men in Suits (2023), There Was a Clattering As (2021), and Through a Window (2024). Chax Press brought out his Selected Poems 1980-2013 in 2022. And the essay collection, Experience: Thinking. Writing, Language, and Religion, appeared in the University of Alabama’s Poetics Series in 2015. He lives on the northern California coast with his wife Kathie, also a Zen Buddhist priest, and is the founder of the Everyday Zen Foundation.
Poet and playwright Chris Tysh is the author of twelve books, the latest of which is 26 Tears, co-authored by George Tysh and published by BlazeVOX in 2022. She holds fellowships from The National Endowment of the Arts and the Kresge Foundation. She teaches at Wayne State University.
Based in Novi, Michigan, poet Nazifa Islam is the author of Forlorn Light: Virginia Woolf Found Poems (Shearsman Books, 2021) and Searching for a Pulse (Whitepoint Press, 2013). Her work has appeared in The Missouri Review, Smartish Pace, The Believer, The Southern Review, and Beloit Poetry Journal among other publications and has been selected for inclusion in The Best American Poetry anthology series. She earned her MFA at Oregon State University.
Saturday, May 17
Over the Pavement II: The New Detroit Chamber Music
featuring Michael Malis, King Sophia, Fusha, Jane Rogers, Benjamin Miller’s Sensorium Chamber Orchestra, and Joel Peterson
Doors 6pm, concert starts at 6:30pm
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El De Smith: Take My Name Off the Order List Don’t Want Anything
Runs through May 25, 2025
Gallery hours are 11am-3pm, Wednesday-Sunday and by appointment.
El De Smith lived in Detroit’s Cass Corridor in the early 1970s and was known as a humorous and unconventional artist who made paintings on plywood, Masonite and cardboard, frequently gifting them to other artists in the community, including Jim Chatelain, Gordon Newton, John Egner, Robert Sestok, Douglas James and Steve Foust, to name a few. This show is comprised of works entirely from private collections and represents the first known public showcase of Smith’s art, writings, and related ephemera in the region. The exhibition has been curated in collaboration with Jim Chatelain with support from Steve Foust and Dylan Spaysky.
