Downtown Detroit's migration magnet pulls in another prestigious name -- the David Klein Gallery of Birmingham.
The David Klein Gallery will keep its location in Birmingham, where it began in 1990. (Facebook photos)
It aims for a Washington Boulevard opening by March on the ground floor of Claridge House Apartments, just south of Grand Circus Park -- joining a parade that includes the Detroit Institute of Music Education, WXYZ, Fifth Third Bank, Athens Souvlaki, the Dime Store restaurant and the John Varvatos menswear boutique in just the last three months. Another Birmingham mainstay -- Townhouse bistro -- last week posted preliminary plans for a One Detroit Center branch on lower Woodward sometime next year.
The newest announcement broke in the Free Press, where JC Reindl reports:
The nationally known David Klein Gallery for contemporary art in Birmingham is planing a second and much-larger location next year for downtown Detroit. . . .
The new 4,000-square-foot space is envisioned to become the gallery's flagship location, with room for more elaborate showings and programs and a larger inventory of art. The Birmingham location at 163 Townsend will stay open.
Those cheered by the news include Amy Haimerl of Crain's, who hastens to note: "I’m not a collector and I know nothing, truly, about modern or contemporary art." She explains her reaction in a Thursday blog post:
It’s the economics of it all that fascinates me. . . .
So . . . I got a little art world-groupie feeling. This is a gallery that has sold major pieces of contemporary and modern art, from a Matisse to a de Kooning, and thinks Detroit is where the smart art world money is at in Michigan. . . .
Klein, who opened his eponymous gallery [in 1990] when he was just 23 and freshly dropped out of law school, has seen a lot of change in the local art market. . . . He sees the future of the gallery focusing on young collectors, those in their 20s and 30s. Folks to grow and develop with.
Visitors attend the opening reception for a spring 2014 exhibit of works by Stephen Magsig of Ferndale.
Klein, 48, tells Reindl: "It has been a lifelong dream to open a gallery in downtown Detroit."
That goal was solidified by comments from non-local artists impressed by Detroit's changes, he adds in a conversation with Haimerl of Crain's:
When you say to a nationally known artist, ‘Oh, come show in Birmingham,’ they roll their eyes,” he said. "But when you say Detroit, they get excited. That has happened in the past five years as things have developed downtown.
