Great art gallery tucked back in a Hamtramck neighborhood near some municipal buildings. In fact, Hatch Art's building used to be a police station; they still have a jail cell that they use to house rotating installations. The current jail cell exhibit is called Take One, Break 1 and is by a guy named Luke MacGilvray. There's a bunch of porcelain tchotchkes painted black with evil red eyes. Guests are encouraged to do just what the name says, shattering one knick knack and pilfering another. And they all have rolled up fortunes a la fortune cookies inside that seem to dwell on the sinister! Very unique, participatory exhibit!
The main exhibit space has an old school phonograph and radio that might be playing classical, avant-garde rock or who knows what if you wander through on a Saturday afternoon. Currently, as of September 22 they're showing landscapes and leaf paintings by a pair of Deborahs, Friedman and Sukenic, Much more conventional than the craziness back in cell block 9 but very aesthetically pleasing work. There's generally a nice variety in the rotation here. Hatch Art likes to take chances but not everything is totally off the wall. I like that.
They also have a poetry night I've never been to but might check out one of these Fridays and some funky patio chairs out front to chill in.
Hatch Art also gets tons of respect from me for buying and working on renovating Hamtramck Disneyland, a wonderfully bizarre folk art installation behind the former home of the late Dmytro Szylak, a Ukrainian immigrant who built it up over 30 years before old age caught up with him and this huge structure with whirligigs and weirdness straddling two garages fell into disrepair. Hatch Art had to dismantle it all and is working on building it back up from the ground up. Hamtramck Disneyland is another review for another day and honestly, it's gone from five stars twenty years ago to two stars now but Hatch Art is working hard to fix that. One day HD will be back to something resembling it's former glory and then I will bang out a review here. Til then Hatch Art is having volunteer days on Sundays to refresh, rehab, repaint, rebuild, what have you. So if the spirit moves you head on down and help! (Maybe check their website first. Winter is coming. Hours may change. Life happens, ya know?) I put in a couple hours one recent Sunday and who knows, may find myself over there again. read more