Noise, Vision and Ruins
Detroit Public Library
Oct. 31, 2025 – Closing March 3, 2026
Opening Performance by Monster Island with Jim Shaw: Oct. 31 at 3:00 p.m.
Closing Performance by poet Anne Carson with Monster Island: Friday, Feb, 27 at 4:00 p.m.
Noise, Vision and Ruins opening Oct. 31st at the Detroit Public Library is an exhibition of books, objects, and ephemera on display and filtered through a personal lens. Touching on memory, art, photography, music, local folklore, myth, and projection—the works forming cabinets of wonder in glass vitrines framed by the quiet chaos of the library. Over 100 books from the Main Branch of the Detroit Library were selected for display alongside a selection of books, art, and ephemera from the collection of Cary Loren. The books and ephemera combine to form a dialogue of silent stories and diorama portraits of Detroit culture.
The exhibition is a satellite “sister exhibit” to Mythic Chaos: 50 Years of Destroy All Monsters opening November 1 2025- March 1, 2026 at the Cranbrook Art Museum.
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Monster Island at Zoots, with Erica Hoffmann-Dilloway, Cary Loren, and Matthew Smith. Photo by Carrie Kelly, 1995
At the opening reception Monster Island musicians Matthew Smith, Efe Bes, and Cary Loren performed with artist/ musician Jim Shaw of Destroy All Monsters, joining the group as a special guest vocalist.
Anne Carson (born June 21, 1950, in Toronto) is a celebrated Canadian poet, essayist, classicist, and translator known for her genre-bending work that blends ancient Greek literature with modern, unconventional forms. A 2000 MacArthur Fellow, she has written acclaimed, experimental books like Autobiography of Red, Nox, and Eros the Bittersweet. Her latest book Wrong Norma was nominated for the National Book Award. A selection of her work will be available for sale at the library courtesy of the Book Beat.
Special thanks to Lyla Catellier of the Cranbrook Art Museum for suggesting the exhibition and to Pop Culture librarian Cully Sommers for his support and enthusiasm, and to the memory of filmmaker Jack Smith, whose work would alter my life soon after discovering it at the Detroit Public Library.
