Detroit 1968, by Enrico Natali, is an extraordinary body of photographic work that was originally published in 1972 under the title New American People. Throughout this pivotal period, Enrico Natali empathically documented Detroit, its people, their environment, and their lives in his compelling photographs.
Forty-one years later, Natali's photographs of Detroit still resonate with hope and emotion, and have taken on an added pathos. These pictures capture the calm before the storm. We see people attending art exhibitions, sporting events, and a high school prom; families posing together for portraits; secretaries smoking their afternoon cigarettes; children, parents, and grandparents; and workers of every stripe. Machinists, waitresses, and beauticians ply their trades with what can only be described in retrospect as innocence. The spirits of these nameless faces are the ghosts that haunt what is now, very literally, a bankrupt metropolis. A handsome, timely, and poignant publication, Detroit 1968 is published by Foggy Notion Books, and includes an essay by Mark Binelli, author of the critically acclaimed book, Detroit City Is the Place to Be, published in 2012 by Metropolitan Books.
Please join Mr. Natali in conversation with Vince Carducci, Dean of Undergraduate Studies at Detroit's College for Creative Studies, for a reception celebrating the release of this timely book. The reception is free of charge and open to the public.
Enrico Natali was born in 1933, in Utica, New York. During the 1960s he lived and photographed in various American cities, including New Orleans, Chicago, and Detroit. At the end of that decade he ceased work as a photographer, and began a meditation practice that became his primary focus as he built a home and raised his family in California's Los Padres National Forest. In 1990 Natali and his wife, Nadia, founded the Blue Heron Center for Integral Studies, a Zen meditation center in Ojai, California.
Vince Carducci is a cultural critic, social researcher, and resident of Detroit. A former editor for Artforum, Carducci has written essays and reviews for various publications, including Art in America, The Journal of Consumer Culture, and Sculpture Magazine, among others. He was a contributing writer for Metro Times, Detroit's leading weekly newspaper, and a staff writer for PopMatters, a webzine of global culture. Carducci taught at Oakland University, and Wayne State University, and he coordinated the Critical Studies/Humanities program at Cranbrook Academy of Art. In 2010, he received the Kresge Foundation's Arts in Detroit Literary Fellowship for his art criticism.
clth, 10 X 10.5 IN. / 152 pgs / 102 duotone
