Untitled
Artist
Glen Michaels
(1927 - 2020)
Date1973
MediumStone tile, aluminum
Dimensions144 × 108 in. (365.8 × 274.3 cm)
ClassificationsMosiac
Object numberUAC381
DescriptionThough always a visual artist, Glen Michaels spent time as a young man working as a piano player. His musical sensibilities later informed his work as a ceramicist; though made up of thousands of bits of tile, metal, and other materials, Michaels stresses that one must “see the entire structure of the sonata” rather than the individual “notes,” as it were, that make up his elaborate murals. The 1973 piece called simply Assemblage, mounted in the entrance foyer of Wayne State’s Gordon H. Scott Hall of Basic Medical Sciences, comprises various materials, helpfully listed on a nearby plaque: Pewabic tile, Tiffany glass, “pre-Christian ceramic tile from Tripoli digging,” and red plastic levers from the Teleflex corporation (a producer of surgical devices), among others. Taken as a whole upon entering the foyer, the tiles merge into consonant columns, swoop up and rise, then tremble slightly before bursting into a crescendo at the top of the wall. Still, it pays to look closely to discover the braided bronze and pieces of letterpress type tucked in among the chips of clay and stone.Text by Sean Bieri
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An artist from a young age — he apprenticed with a WPA muralist when he was just eleven years old — Spokane native Glen Michaels (born 1927) earned his master’s degree at Cranbrook Academy of Art, where he studied under Maija Grotell, who he called the “Beethoven of the ceramic field.” His undulating tile mural depicting a map of the US, created for the Ford Motor pavilion at the 1964 World’s Fair, now resides at the public library in Dearborn. In 1987, Michaels installed several white porcelain panels, adorned with energetic drawings and designs, in the Bricktown People Mover station in Detroit. He lives in Birmingham, Michigan.
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