[Neighborhood youth with mini-bike and van]
Dublin Core
Title
[Neighborhood youth with mini-bike and van]
Subject
AAT: mural paintings (visual works)
AAT: urban landscapes
LCSH: Mural painting and decoration, American--Michigan--Detroit--21st Century.
LCSH: African Americans in art.
AAT: urban landscapes
LCSH: Mural painting and decoration, American--Michigan--Detroit--21st Century.
LCSH: African Americans in art.
Description
Mural painted on side wall of 4-story brick building. Photorealistic African-American youth wearing track suit, straddling back of motorized mini-bike, gazing in the direction of his mini-bike; backdrop is a photorealistic van, parked facing the opposite direction of the youth’s gaze, with shadows of youth and mini-bike cast onto van. Background is abstract in a pastel palette, and youth is holding onto item at shoulder-level, behind him, which is represented in the abstract.
Creator
Pat Perry
Date
2021
Contributor
Ivan Montoya
Format
paint on exterior brick wall
Type
Still Image
Identifier
DMM-2022-00084
Abstract
Artist statement (June 15, 2021): "Thoughts While Painting at 258 Milwaukee Ave.
The building owners who commissioned this mural asked that I paint something that fit thematically with Detroit and the culture of the surrounding neighborhoods. I fought hard to paint this portrait of my neighbor with his mini bike because I wanted to try to put something up that the kids in my neighborhood, and surrounding neighborhoods, would see themselves in.
Despite this social moment of rapidly shifting rhetoric, viral memes and online activism, despite Anti-racist PR statements by our favorite Fortune 500 companies, and despite a lot of self-congratulations, wicked problems in these urban neighborhoods incessantly persist. If you live in one like me, you know what I’m talking about. Concentrated poverty persists. Threats of point-blank, nonmetaphorical violence persist. A lack of political will to make meaningful material change, persists. Oversimplified performances that provide cover-fire for life-or-death indifference, persist. Tribalism dogma persists, lip service persists, and in underserved areas, real change seems often hard to see.
Most of all, youth in these neighborhoods, from a top-down perspective, remain devalued. Under the high-vis glitz and numerous noneconomic commitments, devaluation persists symbolically and concretely. Detroit is still Detroit. While painting this, I had a chance to try to meditate on that. Also, to remind myself that in the end painting pictures isn’t the most important part. The audience-garnering acts (including this social media post and the soapboxing herein) are frivolous compared to the unfabulous-yet-consequential acts and basic decencies that our day-in-day-out lives justly require.
Big ups to Tre (‘lil badass Tre’), and your awesome family. Especially your Mom – she should be proud. Big ups to my assistant on the project, Ivan Montoya. Thanks, Don, Matt, MHT, and big ups to the homeless vets who cheered us on throughout the mural: Chris, Scott, Johnny, and Mike."
The building owners who commissioned this mural asked that I paint something that fit thematically with Detroit and the culture of the surrounding neighborhoods. I fought hard to paint this portrait of my neighbor with his mini bike because I wanted to try to put something up that the kids in my neighborhood, and surrounding neighborhoods, would see themselves in.
Despite this social moment of rapidly shifting rhetoric, viral memes and online activism, despite Anti-racist PR statements by our favorite Fortune 500 companies, and despite a lot of self-congratulations, wicked problems in these urban neighborhoods incessantly persist. If you live in one like me, you know what I’m talking about. Concentrated poverty persists. Threats of point-blank, nonmetaphorical violence persist. A lack of political will to make meaningful material change, persists. Oversimplified performances that provide cover-fire for life-or-death indifference, persist. Tribalism dogma persists, lip service persists, and in underserved areas, real change seems often hard to see.
Most of all, youth in these neighborhoods, from a top-down perspective, remain devalued. Under the high-vis glitz and numerous noneconomic commitments, devaluation persists symbolically and concretely. Detroit is still Detroit. While painting this, I had a chance to try to meditate on that. Also, to remind myself that in the end painting pictures isn’t the most important part. The audience-garnering acts (including this social media post and the soapboxing herein) are frivolous compared to the unfabulous-yet-consequential acts and basic decencies that our day-in-day-out lives justly require.
Big ups to Tre (‘lil badass Tre’), and your awesome family. Especially your Mom – she should be proud. Big ups to my assistant on the project, Ivan Montoya. Thanks, Don, Matt, MHT, and big ups to the homeless vets who cheered us on throughout the mural: Chris, Scott, Johnny, and Mike."
Is Part Of
Veterans Memorial Park
References
City of Detroit. (n.d.). Mural map. Detroit Arts, Culture, & Entrepreneurship. https://ace.detroitmi.gov/mural-map?mural=610578b4e8df6c326fae03f0 (Accessed October 15, 2023)
Perry, P. (2021, June 15). Pat Perry on Instagram: “Detroit, MI. 2021 ( scroll --->) assisted by @imontoya_ big thanks Linda/patty/MHT for the wall.” Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/CQJcnfDgjZw/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA (Accessed October 15, 2023)
Milwaukee Junction Apartments. (2022). Milwaukee Junction Apartments. https://milwaukeejunctionapartments.com/ (Accessed October 15, 2023)
Perry, P. (2021, June 15). Pat Perry on Instagram: “Detroit, MI. 2021 ( scroll --->) assisted by @imontoya_ big thanks Linda/patty/MHT for the wall.” Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/CQJcnfDgjZw/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA (Accessed October 15, 2023)
Milwaukee Junction Apartments. (2022). Milwaukee Junction Apartments. https://milwaukeejunctionapartments.com/ (Accessed October 15, 2023)
Spatial Coverage
Address: 258 Milwaukee Ave., Detroit MI 48202
Coordinates: 42.37017740997597, -83.06921383086747
Coordinates: 42.37017740997597, -83.06921383086747
Collection
Citation
Pat Perry, “[Neighborhood youth with mini-bike and van],” Wayne State University - School of Information Sciences, accessed April 28, 2024, https://waynestateu.omeka.net/items/show/1378.