Activist and poet John Sinclair to discuss legacy of the Detroit Artists’ Workshop at MSU

john sinclair poetry

John Sinclair, photo by Leni Sinclair, 1968

A conversation between John Sinclair and Cary Loren will take place at 4:00 pm on Saturday, March 31,  in Erickson Kiva, located inside Erickson Hall at 620 Farm Lane on MSU’s campus. The event is free and open to the public. For additional information, go to:broadmuseum.msu.edu/sinclairloren.

“Jerry Younkins, who is sometimes considered Detroit’s first hippie, called the Detroit Artists’ Workshop of the mid-1960s the “most fitting and glorious flower to bloom on the dungheap of the arsenal of democracy.”

It was largely the brainchild of students at Monteith College, an experimental liberal arts college within Wayne State University, and young local artists. They hoped the group would put the Detroit avant-garde art scene on the map.

“Detroit, despite all its pretensions, has been artistically ‘dead’ for longer than most people here want to admit,” wrote founding members, John Sinclair and Robin Eichele, in a 1965 article for the journal “New University Thought.”

“[O]ur goal was (and is) to pull together the active and potential artists in the Detroit area into a working, cooperative community of human beings that would offer to each individual an open, supportive artistic environment.” –continue reading at The Lansing State Journal

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