A City on Fire

In conjunction with its current exhibitions, MOCA Cleveland hosts A City on Fire: Artist Dialogue with Anders Ruhwald and Dan Pietera, Detroit-based architect and sociopolitical activist. Anders Ruhwald’s Unit 1: 3583 Dubois recreates several life-size rooms and corridors based on a permanent installation Ruhwald is creating in an apartment he purchased inside the dilapidated building from which the exhibition draws its name. 3583 Dubois Street no longer exists in Detroit. Though the 7,000 square foot brick apartment building still stands, it has been reassigned a new address: 2170 Mack Ave. Using materials from the building and neighborhood as well as his signature ceramic works, Ruhwald creates abstracted spaces to “retell (and thus reclaim) the past, animate the present and suggest a shifted future.” Unit 1: 3583 is organized by MOCA Cleveland’s Deputy Director Megan Lykins Reich in the Toby Devan Lewis Gallery. At 7 tonight, Ruhwald and Pietera will use Ruhwald’s exhibition at MOCA as a starting point to explore the evolution of rustbelt cities like Cleveland and Detroit, as well as Ruhwald’s metaphor for transformation of both objects and space. MOCA Cleveland’s current exhibitions remain on view through Dec. 31. Free with museum admission. (Josh Usmani)