Every movement of consequence, however far-reaching, has a beginning. Surrealism’s birth was full-blown from the mind of French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who in 1917 was quoted about this new spirit in the air thusly: “When a man wanted to imitate walking, he invented the wheel, which does not look like a leg. Without knowing it, he was a Surrealist.” But it was Andre Breton who appropriated the word in his Manifesto and set himself up for over 50 years as its leading proponent. 

Citing Gordon Parks and Ralph Ellison’s 1948 collaboration Harlem is Nowhere as an influence, Frazier utilized mass media as an outlet to reach a broad audience, publishing her images of Flint in conjunction with a special feature on the water crisis in Elle magazine in September 2016. Like Parks, Frazier uses the cameras as a weapon and agent of social change. The exhibition is part of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Exhibition Series, which addresses issues of race, diversity, social justice, and civil rights.

Judging by their 1909 manifesto, the Italian Futurists were a violent lot.  They called for nothing less than the destruction of museums, libraries and feminism.  They intended to “glorify war, the only hygiene of the world,” and to “sing to the love of danger.”  If their manifestos fell a little flat, their creative endeavors were all-encompassing, reconstructing painting, sculpture, architecture, fashion and even performance to such an extent that we would never look at the world in quite the same way again.