Category Archives: Art

Map of the Mediterranean at Mediterrano

For over 20 years, this mural of the Mediterranean has overlooked Mediterrano’s main dinning area. The mural shows Odysseus’ nautical travels after the Trojan War in ancient times which span the entire Mediterranean Sea, including two continents. Fittingly, Odysseus’ routes also reflect how Mediterrano blends the food from many different cultures in order to demonstrate and share the richness of the Mediterranean diet with its customers.

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Mural of Ancient Bacchanal at Gratzi

Mural of ancient bacchanal at Gratzi.

Mural of ancient bacchanal at Gratzi.

Founded in 1987, Gratzi is an upscale Italian restaurant that is Greek owned and features a large mural as well as balcony seating. Painted by a man from Chicago when the restaurant opened, his name was forgotten through the years, but his mural lives on adding to Gratzi’s indulgent and pleasurable atmosphere. This Renaissance-style mural depicts an ancient bacchanal (gratzirestaurant.com) where men, women, satyrs, and in this case, Dionysus as well, took part in drinking wine, listening to music, dancing, and orgies. These events were called bacchanalia or Dionysia (britannica.com) and celebrated Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and ecstasy. Overall, in the festivals, which had some ritual components, participants indulged in all things to the point of excess.

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Fountain of Minerva

Source: http://www.nethercraft.com/prod_sculpture.html#

Fountain of Minerva. Sculpture of a scene from the Trojan War from Homer’s Iliad. Source: nethercraft.com.

Created by sculptor Julian Baksik, a graduate of the University of Michigan art school, this fountain is a combination of the compositions of the Trevi and Triton Fountains in Rome, the waterspouts at Lake Como’s Villa d’Este and the French Renaissance sculpture Diana D’anet at the Louvre (Leblanc 2012). Located in the yard of Kevin Nickerson on Ann Arbor’s NW side, Minerva, wrathful with Ajax, beckons Neptune to raise a storm to smite the Achaean fleet in a scene taken from the Trojan War (nethercraft.com). The monumental sculpture group made of acrylic, epoxy, and fiberglass to resist weathering took two trips to Rome and more than 10,000 hours of hands-on work by Baksik as well as a team of volunteers over a span of two years to complete.

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Dancing Muses

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Dancing Muses by K. A. Letts. Source: a3arts.org.

In this piece, for the Power Art program, K. A. Letts features several black figured dancers who are supposed to be dancing muses. The idea of an inspirational muse is derived from Greek mythology. In mythology muses were figures of inspiration for the science, arts, and literatures. There were nine muses in total that embodied the knowledge in their subjects; Calliope (epic poetry and rhetoric), Cio (history), Erato (singing), Eutere (lyric poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Polymnia (hymns to the gods and heroes), Terpsichore or Stesichore (dance), Thalia (comedy), and Urania (astronomy) (ancient.eu).

In partnership with the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority (AADDA) and the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission (AAPAC), the Arts Alliance manages, selects, and installs artwork by local artists on power boxes throughout downtown Ann Arbor. “Projects like PowerArt! exist across the country, and have led to a decrease in vandalism where installed” (a3arts.org). The vinyl material used to wrap the artwork is resistant to graffiti and can be replaced if damaged. In addition to decreasing vandalism as well being graffiti resistant, these works also serve to beautify the city by transforming industrial looking electrical boxes, which are on many streets corners, into art exhibits for the public to enjoy.

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Olga Alexopoulou

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Alexopoulou’s black and white mural on Thayer.

Olga Alexopoulou, born in Athens, Greece, is a internationally known artist that studied at Oxford and University’s John Ruskin School of Art. In 2005, she moved to Istanbul. Her black and white murals, against visually colorful cities, “express an important dimension of Greek life today: movement and flight” (ns.umich.edu). This is very relevant within the context of the multiple (economic, political, and social) crises going on in Greece. Alexopoulou’s works often depict mountain landscapes and ocean scenes and have been featured in galleries around the world.

Sponsored by the University of Michigan’s Modern Greek and History of Art Departments and Humanities Institute Alexopoulou, is a participant of the Global Graffiti project, which involves Cacao Rocks and Mehdi Ghadyanlo, two other international artists. The project hopes to “to engage the campus and greater community with international artists who offer a global perspective on the use of street art as powerful forms of expression and communication” (record.umich.edu). Alexopoulou completed her black and white mural on September 14th, 2016 which can be seen on S. Thayer street.

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Cacao Rocks

From Athens, Greece, Cacao Rocks’s home turf is filled with many of his vibrant and colorful works that are known worldwide. He started off as a teenager practicing simple tags with his friends because he thought it was cool and wanted to impress the ladies. He never dreamed that one day his work be featured internationally and in museums. In 2004, after his trip across Europe, where he visited major museums among other things, he began to produce art replicating what he had seen abroad and became revitalized in street art. Cacao draws his influence in large, from Greece’s state of multiple (economic, political, and social) crises. Beginning in 2008, Cacao experienced first hand the start of the crisis and many of his works reflect its issues that have not been resolved yet. He is also influenced by Greek architecture, of all time periods, and the street artist Banksy from Britain, who he sees as a role model for all street art and graffiti artists. Today, he is internationally known with his pieces having been exhibited in the U.S., U.K., Italy, many street art and graffiti festivals as well as at the Benaki Museum in Athens and the Onassis Art Foundation in New York.

Sponsored by the University of Michigan’s Modern Greek and History of Art Departments and Humanities Institute Cacao, is a participant of the Global Graffiti project, which involves Olga Alexopoulou and Mehdi Ghadyanlo, two other international artists. The project hopes to “to engage the campus and greater community with international artists who offer a global perspective on the use of street art as powerful forms of expression and communication” (record.umich.edu). Cacao completed “Paros to Delos” on October 26th, 2016 which can be seen on the corner of N. University and S. Thayer.

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Show Horse 1

Originally produced as a painting, Show Horse 1 made by K. A. Letts, is now in Ann Arbor in the form of vinyl wrap. Local artist K. A. Letts, selected by PowerArt!, draws inspiration from myth, aboriginal art, outsider and street art and. Her wrap depicts a horse walking down a paved street that seems to flow and bend all around the power box. Although different from the original, the work still shows Greek influence from Minoan pottery. The elongated and narrow stylized horses elicit Minoan characteristics even though more commonly abstract, floral, or marine subjects were painted on vases. The artist also may have drawn from archaic funerary vases where horses, similarly depicted, were often part of the funerary procession for elite Greeks.

In partnership with the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority (AADDA) and the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission (AAPAC), the Arts Alliance manages, selects, and installs artwork by local artists on power boxes throughout downtown Ann Arbor. “Projects like PowerArt! exist across the country, and have led to a decrease in vandalism where installed” (a3arts.org). The vinyl material used to wrap the artwork is resistant to graffiti and can be replaced if damaged. In addition to decreasing vandalism as well being graffiti resistant, these works also serve to beautify the city by transforming industrial looking electrical boxes, which are on many streets corners, into art exhibits for the public to enjoy.

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