Heidelberg Street is an unexpected hub for art. The quiet stretch situated just east of downtown Detroit, in an area crowded with dilapidated housing and empty lots reclaimed by nature, draws an estimated 270,000 people a year.
The whimsical creation of Detroit artist Tyree Guyton, the site dubbed the Heidelberg Project has rejuvenated the surrounding neighborhood, in a way that is probably only possible in Detroit: Guyton took ordinary found items – old toys, appliances, clothes – and turned the surrounding streetscape into a blocks-long art project.
“I had no plans,” he told People magazine in 1988. “It just happened. I heard a voice, and I did what the voice told me.”
But now, 30 years after he first got to work, Guyton is ready to move on. In an announcement that caught neighbors, visitors and fans across the US off guard, the 60-year-old artist said the Heidelberg Project would slowly be dismantled over the next couple of years.
“That means the art that you and me and the rest of the world has come to know and see on Heidelberg Street will be removed over a period of time,” said Jenenne Whitfield, executive director of the not-for-profit organization that runs the site and is also called the Heidelberg Project.
Along Heidelberg Street, rows of houses and vacant lots have been transformed into bold and eclectic installations. There are clocks, polka dots, tires and rusted machinery. A sea of shoes line old fences. Stuffed animals and old dolls pop out from houses. And every day, a steady stream of motorists arrive, crawling down the street to snap a quick photo or get out and stroll through the installation.
What’s next, once the project is dismantled, remains an open question, but the organization is revamping to create something called “Heidelberg 3.0”. Whitfield, 54, who is married to Guyton, said the objective of this next phase was to “cultivate the larger community … with more people in this area and hopefully new people”.
Visitors from across the world – including the United Kingdom and Israel – strolled the site this week, some newcomers and others longtime visitors who expressed mixed emotions about the new plan for Heidelberg.
“I’ve come since I was kind of young, been here when all of these houses were still here,” said Dustin Symons, 23, an auto part manufacturing employee who lives in Detroit’s suburbs. “Every year, I come at least a couple times, take some pictures, see how it changes. Every time I come, there’s usually something different.”
Symons’ friend Esteban Martinez had never visited Heidelberg until Thursday.
“It’s pretty gnarly, man. It’s definitely something like I wouldn’t anticipate,” said Martinez, 23, a laborer who lives in the nearby city of Troy. “Just the art speaks for itself.”
The appreciation for Guyton’s work clashed frequently with city officials who have characterized it as junk. The project also exists on 27 city-owned parcels, though the Heidelberg organization has recently held discussions with the city about a potential use for, and possible acquisition of the properties.
Newcomers on Thursday noted it was at times difficult to differentiate households tied to the project with others occupied by actual neighbors.
The project has received a renewed focus in recent years, after a string of suspicious fires destroyed multiple homes on the site, the remnants of which were felt by visitors this week who noted the missing structures.
“Three times the size, yeah – at least,” Todd Cummings, a 46-year-old clay sculptor from Detroit’s suburbs, said on Thursday of the project’s size when he last visited, a decade ago. “You know, I can’t remember how many houses were here, originally, but I know there’s a lot of them gone. I can just tell the scale of it is just immensely smaller.”
Beyond suspected arsons, the Heidelberg Project also withstood a series of quarrels with previous city administrations. In the early 1990s, as Guyton’s work drew significant international attention, he made an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show. But the talkshow icon didn’t appear impressed by his work. “Tyree, what is this?” a seemingly confounded Winfrey asked Guyton.
The attention was clearly unwelcome to officials in a city grappling with a blighted reputation: within weeks, Detroit’s then mayor, Coleman Young, ordered several homes in the project to be demolished. Young’s successor, Dennis Archer, demolished another portion in 1999.
“We’ve outlasted six mayoral administrations, and not one has yet to stand up and publicly even acknowledge the Heidelberg Project, and what it has done,” Whitfield said. “So, the appreciation in the city has not been that great, and perhaps the fate would be different if it had been different, I don’t know.”
Still, she said, the support from visitors and supporters “told us that we were doing something good and something right”.
“Now, if anything, it’s unfortunate that our administration may have missed the boat,” she said.
Whitfield said the organization was gearing up to launch a $1m fundraising campaign to support the transition into its conceptual arts community, with some of the proceeds to be used to establish a retirement fund for Guyton.
“It’s going to be a different look because it won’t be curated by one man anymore,” she said. “And so what that’s going to be is really something that we can’t answer.
“The bottom line is: this is our 30-year anniversary,” she said. “Tyree has been working on the project for 30 years, and if you know anything about the history of the Heidelberg Project, you know that those 30 years has meant his physical presence here with the project all of these years.
“It’s simply time after 30 years to morph into something more dynamic,” she added.
Cummings, the clay sculptor, learned of Guyton’s plans to dismantle the current project upon speaking with the Guardian.
“Entirely?” he said. “Is that right. Wow, that’s sad.”
Cummings recalled visiting the site in the 1990s, admiringly calling it a spectacle for “us white kids out of the ’burbs”. He said he made it a priority to bring any newcomer to Heidelberg.
“Anybody who was into anything abstract or obscure, yeah, they wanted to check it out,” he said. “Most kids from the ’burbs, they’ve never seen anything like this. And you never will.”
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