Avedon was interested in how portraiture captures the personality and soul of its subject. He embraced the Civil Rights movement and strove to bring women of color and diverse ethnicities to pages of fashion magazines. Avedon was one of the first high-profile photographers to work with African American and multi-racial models, including Detroit-native Donyale Luna and the Eurasian model China Machado.
The reception is hosted by the “Ladies of Avedon” a group of diverse, philanthropic women who came together to raise the needed funds to bring Avedon to the DIA. Because of their support the community will be able to enjoy the works one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century.
WHO are The Ladies of Avelon?
More on this later from DC in Detroit
Other events at The DIA this weekend include:
Target Family Sunday
Family Performance: "Peter Rabbit"
Sunday, October 18, 2009 2 p.m.
Wild Swan Theater Company brings to life the adventures of Peter Rabbit as he dares to enter Farmer McGregor's garden, despite his mother's warnings.
Friday Night Live!
Moira Smiley & VOCO
Friday, October 16, 2009 7 & 8:30 p.m.
Performing original songs steeped in Appalachian and Eastern European traditions, Moira Smiley and VOCO sing powerful, emotional music with lush harmony and the delicious vaudevillian combo of cello, accordion, and banjo.
CLOUD 9
Oct. 16-17 @ 9:30 p.m.
(Germany - 2008 - directed by Andreas Dresen)
After 30 years of marriage, 67-year-old Inge (Ursula Werner) is living contentedly in Berlin with her husband, Werner (Horst Rehberg). They have their hobbies, their family and their vacations, and Inge has her small business - doing clothing alterations at home - which is how she encounters Karl, with whom she promptly and unhesitatingly begins a passionate sexual and romantic affair. Inge chooses to be candid with her husband about this new direction in her life, and soon shocks her daughter with the news as well. As she recalibrates every assumption about herself - at an age when so many simply resign themselves to "fate" - Inge's sudden refusal to trade passion and risk for certainty and calm turns Cloud 9 into a remarkably engaging portrait of a spiritual and personal catharsis amid the never-ending search for joy. Un Certain Regard Jury Prize, 2008 Cannes Film Festival. In German with English subtitles. (98 min.)
STILL WALKING
Oct. 16 @ 7:30 p.m., Oct. 17 @ 7p.m., Oct. 18 @ 4:15 p.m.
(Japan - 2008 - directed by Kore-eda Hirokazu)
With an extraordinary body of work including Nobody Knows and After Life, Kore-eda Hirokazu has established himself as the most universally popular and acclaimed Japanese director of his generation. His exquisite, engaging, richly entertaining new movie is the story of two grown children who, together with their own young families, decide to pay a 24-hour visit to their elderly parents. If it sounds like a cut-and-dried retread of Ozu's great Tokyo Story, think again; these vivid characters are fresh, surprising and utterly contemporary in Kore-eda's hands, even as they face each family's universally recognizable joys, disappointments and expectations - both met and unmet. At once transcendent and reassuringly familiar, Still Walking is one of the year's most delicate cinematic masterworks. In Japanese with English subtitles. (114 min.)
Museum Mystery TourFriday, October 16, 2009 6PM - 9PM
Commune with the spirits of long-gone artists! Tour the American Art galleries with guides who will tell tales and mysterious secrets about the artists whose work haunts the DIA's historic American wing. You've never seen the galleries like this: eerie lighting and sounds in the dark will put you in a Halloween mood.
Get more info and tickets
http://www.dia.org/