Next time you’re heading to the Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre (though it’s still Chene Park in our minds), take the scenic route along Chene.
It’s here you’ll find portraits of Motown greats like Stevie Wonder, David Ruffin, Ron Isley, Gladys Knight, Diana Ross, Tammi Terrell, and Aretha Franklin. Detroit artist Darius Baber is behind the colorful, large-scale art installations that were commissioned by Bedrock in collaboration with Library Street Collective.
The nine art pieces show the Motown singers in their prime, jovial and colorful. They also light up at night. Baber says Aretha Franklin was a given, since the pieces are along the road to the Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre, and he picked the rest of the subjects to highlight Detroit’s contributions to music.
“I feel like our history kinda gets swept under the rug a lot,” he tells Metro Times, speaking about Motown Records. “We started a different genre but not only that, [Motown] started as a small Black business that went global. That’s something that we should celebrate in Detroit. I want to put that creative side of Detroit on display and advertise that.”
Creating the digital portraits was a new venture for Baber, who says he typically does portraits of friends that blend painting, photography, and crafting.
“It’s mostly about aesthetic and trying to make a visual language with the materials,” he says. “I like to ride the line between being very representational and impressions, so showing all the brush strokes where it’s not too realistic.”
Baber, who says he has been drawing since he was eight, credits classes at the Northwest Activity Center through the National Conference of Artists for inspiring him to pursue art as a career. There he met fellow artists Tashif Turner (aka Sheefy McFly) and Senghor Reid, who taught the classes when Baber was a kid. He would later become a teaching artist there himself.
“Before that, drawing was just my thing that I did in solitude and when I got into that program I met other people who were passionate and did things their own way,” he says. “I learned this was something that adults did for a living and that opened my eyes.”
In addition to Baber’s portraits, a light installation by Patrick Ethen and a mural in memory of Gilda Snowden on the Atwater Brewery Parking Lot structure have also been erected in the area. They’re all part of Bedrock’s East Riverfront streetscape activation project, which was announced in the fall of 2022 and has finally begun to come to life.
Baber will also be participating in the BLKOUT Walls mural festival led by Sydney G. James this September. It’ll be his first time painting a mural and he plans to dedicate his wall to Detroit musician Ian Fink.
“On his birthday we were having a conversation that convinced me to do a mural of him,” Baber says. “We were talking about insecurity as an artist and I was like you know what, you’re my favorite musician so I’m going to put you on my wall. It’s important to highlight people who are still alive. When we get platforms, I like to be each other’s billboards.”
Where to see his work: Baber’s Motown portraits are located along Chene, starting at Jefferson and going toward the Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre. They will be up for the duration of the summer.
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