Detroit Research Volume 1

77
International aphorism, “the beach beneath the streets.” 6 The reclamation of
the commons can be seen in grassroots activities such as the urban farming
movement where in many cases it is unclear where title resides to the land
being cultivated and residents simply work the plots and harvest the results.
The art of the commons first emerged in desolate zones of the city where the distinctions
of conventional property relations had been effectively erased, in places
where the abandoned landscape offered opportunities for creative agency to
flourish by force of sheer will. The most notable early example is Tyree Guyton’s
Heidelberg Project, begun in 1986 on the street on Detroit’s East Side where the
artist grew up, which at the time had been virtually annihilated by not-so-benign
neglect. Guyton’s project, which spreads over more than two city blocks, is not
strictly speaking private as it is available for all to freely experience, resisting assimilation
into the private domain of commercial galleries and collectors. In addition,
The Heidelberg Project was initially undertaken outside the official channels
of public art, which vet the creative expressions that are allowed entry to the public
sphere. Indeed, the City of Detroit government has tried twice to demolish the project,
citing its interference with urban development plans and a rash of neighborhood
complaints as part of its action, with Guyton simply rebuilding it anew each time.
Appropriating vacant houses and empty lots and using castoffs retrieved from
around the neighborhood, the artist created a sprawling outdoor installation that
drew attention to and commented on the failure of the modern urban order. Guyton
festooned one structure with salvaged doll parts. Another was covered with
multicolored polka dots that spilled out onto the street. Discarded doors and car
parts were painted and fashioned into freestanding sculptures and placed in different
locations around the neighborhood. Most chilling, a tree’s barren limbs were
trimmed with shoes suspended by their knotted laces, to the unsuspecting eye an
imitation of the practical joke of tossing footwear out of their owners’ reach but in
fact referring to the memories of the artist’s grandfather, a descendant of slaves,
who told tales of the lynching trees from his rural youth in the South where all
that passersby could see were the soles of the victims’ shoes dangling overhead.
Another, more recent example of the art of the commons is Scott Hocking, who
for more than a decade has drifted through Detroit’s nether parts, working in the
manner of the Situationist dérive. In the course of walkabouts among the city’s industrial
ruins and other neglected spaces, Hocking creates installations and other
interventions, and he documents them photographically along with other aspects of
Detroit’s postindustrial psychogeography. Often the result of weeks if not months of
solitary labor, these projects are undertaken with full knowledge of the likelihood of
their eventual destruction either by human intervention or exposure to the elements.