Arts & Culture

Michigan artists will be well-represented at the 53rd annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 13. Here's a brief list:

• Detroit rap star Eminem has been nominated for a record 10 Grammy Awards this year, including Album of the Year and Song of the Year.

• Jennifer Hudson, Christina Aguilera and others will pay musical tribute to the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin.

• University of Michigan professor Michael Daugherty has been nominated for five Grammy Awards, including Best Classical Contemporary Composition for his piece "Deus ex Machina."

• Conductor and recent Michigan transplant, John McLaughlin Williams, is also nominated for a Grammy Award. 

• Michigan State University ethnomusicology professor Isaac Kalumbu is nominated for a Grammy for best reggae album. 

The DSO talks have apparently hit another roadblock according to the Associated Press:

Striking Detroit Symphony Orchestra musicians have rejected the latest contract proposal from orchestra management. A musician speaking Wednesday on the condition of anonymity because he isn't authorized to speak for the union told The Associated Press the offer was rejected but more talks are possible. Management officials submitted the proposal last Friday. It included a stipulation the musicians must respond by this Friday. Management spokeswoman Elizabeth Weigandt wouldn't confirm the rejection but says a statement is expected to be released later Wednesday. Teams representing management and musicians met in late January, but those talks collapsed as they accused each other of not adhering to a three-year, $36 million proposal made in December by then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Sen. Carl Levin. The walkout began Oct. 4.

A tiny Upper Peninsula community is the winner of the Reader’s Digest national “We Hear You America” contest.

About 300 people live in Grand Marais, a Lake Superior summertime tourist destination.

Jack Hubbard is Burt Township supervisor and oversees Grand Marais.

He says the $40,000 prize will go toward replacing the harbor’s breakwater.

Hubbard also says he was amazed that voters from two Michigan other cities helped put his community win.

You could call it drive-by artistry.

The Kalamazoo Institute of Arts is holding a billboard contest for artists who live in Kalamazoo County.

Farrell Howe is with the KIA.  She says artists must submit a one-page biography and five images of their work to enter the competition.

"Winners will then be awarded the ability to have their artwork featured on a billboard for one year," Howe says. "Basically what's great about that is it doesn't stay in one spot. The billboards will be rotating across 850 sites inWest Michigan."

We put together our stories about arts and the economy in the state to create an hour-long documentary called The Cost of Creativity. On today's podcast, we'll hear the second installment of the doc.

And because Artpod is about all things Michigan, all the music you'll hear on The Cost of Creativity is by Michigan artists. The musicians featured on today's podcast Luke Winslow-King and The Red Sea Pedestrian.

I didn’t really watch the Super Bowl last night. I only flipped it on toward the very end to see what had happened. I also logged onto my Facebook page about the same time, and was floored to see my newsfeed exploding with updates, nearly all variations on one theme: “Imported from Detroit.”

I was curious to know what this was all about, and fortunately some helpful people had already posted links to the Chrysler 200 ad featuring Eminem. It begins with the familiar stark images of Detroit—the bleak industrial landscape, the vacant and decaying buildings. Then a growling, defiant voice: “I’ve gotta question for you. What does this city know about luxury?”

“What does a town that’s been to hell and back know about the finer things in life?”

The response is an unfolding visual narrative that was a surprisingly moving tribute to Detroit’s aesthetic and cultural beauty. Underlying it all is a frank admission that the city has been to hell, and it may still be somewhere near hell-ish. But like Diego Rivera’s gorgeous murals that depict Detroit in its industrial heyday, the ad also finds beauty in Detroit’s hardscrabble nature. It issues a defiant challenge to recognize that beauty, but offers no apologies to those who won’t.