[June 10, 2011] New museum, Kunsthalle Detroit, to open exhibition space Tweet Jun 10, 2011 (Detroit Free Press - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- In 2009, Tate Osten, a Russian-born arts consultant and appraiser in New York, saw a TV report about Detroit, and the juxtaposition of the city's gorgeous architecture and devastating decay stopped her cold. Horrified and seduced, she rented a car and drove here for a visit. Within months, she bought a house in the Boston-Edison neighborhood, where she lives with her life partner, Tim White-Sobieski, a Polish-born artist. Those roots have now sprouted into the city's latest artistic adventure. With Osten as founding director, the Kunsthalle Detroit launches this weekend in a former Comerica bank branch at the gritty intersection of Grand River and Warren. Opening on a shoestring, the exhibition space promises to focus on multimedia, video and light-based art. Osten said it's the first museum in America dedicated solely to this mission. The inaugural show includes works by a dozen artists, among them such big names as Bill Viola, William Kentridge and Diana Thater. Kunsthalle (KOONST-holl-ah) is the German word for non-collecting exhibition spaces or institutions. The Kunsthalle Detroit is a peculiarly Detroit story, the latest manifestation of the city's reputation as an art-world mecca, attracting a wide range of artists to place stakes in the ground. They see the city as a blank slate of inexpensive real estate, last-frontier opportunities and unlimited space, and seek the chance to help reinvent the city through art. "The idea is to turn the river of time back to when culture was flourishing in Detroit," said Osten, 51, speaking Wednesday at Starbucks in Midtown. She repeated the trope of Detroit as the next Berlin, the quintessential post-industrial city that reinvented itself as a haven of culture. Dressed in a zebra-print dress, sunglasses propped up on her blond hair, she wiped plaster dust from her arms, a reflection of the flurry of last-minute construction. There are two floors, including a 4,000-square-foot main level with marble floors and accents, but the space remains raw and scruffy. The Kunsthalle Detroit's grand ambition to become an international center for new art is larger than most plans hatched by outsiders, but the enterprise reveals some of the tensions over scarce resources in Detroit's small, cliquish arts community. A number of arts professionals, collectors and artists contacted by the Free Press this week had either never heard of Osten and her venture or were only vaguely aware it. Some privately expressed skepticism and said they were surprised Osten hadn't done more to cultivate relationships with the local scene. Incorporated as a nonprofit, the museum has just a few board members, who live in New York, California and Toledo. But Jef Bourgeau, director of the Museum of New Art in Pontiac, sounded hopeful. "I want to believe it will be another important piece in the cultural jigsaw puzzle here, to help reinvigorate and build upon what we already have." Osten acknowledged the tension. "A lot of locals have resistance to things from the outside," she said. "But people should open their hearts. We are not competitors. We want to work with everyone." Trained as a dancer in her native St. Petersburg, Osten was the director of a dance museum and did other professional cultural work in Russia, before transitioning into contemporary art. She emigrated to American in 1991 and ran a New York gallery briefly in the mid '90s, before working as a freelance consultant, helping build modest corporate collections. A half-dozen New York partners originally backed Osten's Detroit project, which incorporated as a nonprofit in 2010. But after the partners purchased the building, they withdrew active support. She said she's put $30,000 to $50,000 into the renovations and launch, drawing on savings and selling personal possessions. White-Sobieski, Osten and a few volunteers and workers have done the heavy lifting. Osten organized the first show using her connections to secure art on loan from galleries. She knows it won't last without additional support, but is banking on money following the programming and potential. "We needed to get it up on its feet," she said. "Once it starts functioning, I think it will attract forces from all over the world." Contact MARK STRYKER at 313-222-6459 or [email protected]. To see more of the Detroit Free Press, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.freep.com Copyright (c) 2011, Detroit Free Press Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]