Where the pipeline is this place anyway?

Presumably this was a garage attached to a house. Now it's an art gallery.

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What Pipeline

3525 W. Vernor
Detroit MI 48216

If you see a taco truck to your left and Gio­van­na's to your right, then you're on the right track. The gallery is in a free-standing structure with the front door several yards from the sidewalk. It kind of looks like it used to be the garage to a now long gone house.

Openings are usually on Fri­days, some­times on Sat­ur­days. Prior to the co­ro­na­virus pan­dem­ic of 2020, gallery hours were limited to Sat­ur­days, now they're on Thurs­days, Fri­days and Sat­ur­days from 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., and by ap­point­ment.

Named one of Detroit's best art galleries by Art­space (article linked below). Owned and di­rect­ed by Daniel Sperry and Alivia Zivich, this is a some­times aggressively avant-garde gallery with a heavy em­pha­sis on Eu­ro­pe­an artists. Sometimes, how­ev­er, the exhibits are so empty and devoid of interest that they're merely run-of-the-mill avant-garde.

While it is important to bring in­ter­na­tion­al art­ists to Detroit (and "in­ter­na­tion­al artists" ought to also mean artists from Asia, Africa and Latin America in addition to Europe), the fo­cus of this website is on Michigan art­ists. We will try to keep you in­formed of What Pipeline's ex­hi­bi­tions in Detroit, but not with as much de­tail or ur­gen­cy as with other Detroit galleries.

Current exhibition

Upcoming exhibitions

Not yet announced. There might be a Matthew Zivich memorial exhibition.

Past exhibitions

Alivia with thinking water

Alivia Zivich, holding up a box of Flint water, listens to someone read the number of the winning ticket of the raffle at What Pipeline. "This is for thinking, not drink­ing," Zivich said of the water.

In collaboration with Kavita Schmidt, What Pipeline had an exhibit at Cave that started on January 21, 2017, and ran to February 18, 2017.

Andrew Kreps Gallery in New York hosted What Pipeline from June 29, 2017 to July 28, 2017 for an exhibit of artwork by Mary Ann Aitken and Dylan Spaysky.

History with the Knight Arts Challenge

Ever get that feeling?

From the June 2016 exhibition.

In 2014, What Pipeline "won" a $15,000 matching funds grant from the Knight Foundation to publish books by or about Detroit-based artists. What a lot of peo­ple don't understand about these grants, is that to get one red cent from Knight, a "winner" must first get a matching red cent from another source. But that can be very difficult when there is that headline out there saying you won all this money to do the project, yet you don't do any­thing right away, besides ask for more mon­ey.

At least an organization, even one as small as What Pipeline, is much better equipped than an individual to deal with all the work and head­ache of a matching funds grant. What Pipe­line had, as of July 2015, pub­lished two books in the series. On August 29 and 30, 2015, from noon to 8:00 p.m., Nolan Simon painted por­traits live at What Pipeline to raise more mon­ey for the pub­li­ca­tion project. People who got por­traits painted include local artists James Collins and Greg Fadell.

In 2016, What Pipeline was selected for yet an­oth­er Knight Arts Challenge matching funds grant, this time to bring an artist, Pope L., to De­troit. A Kickstarter project concluded with $5,803 over the pledge goal.

What Pipeline hosted "an evening with Pope.L in Flint" at MW Gallery in Flint on March 1, 2018.

From April 7, 2018 to May 12, 2018, What Pipe­line screened Shakedown, a film by Leilah Weinraub. Then, from May 19 to June 23 of the same year, Park View / Paul Soto in Los An­ge­les hosted What Pipeline for a Bailey Scieszka exhibit.

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