Conversation: Tyrrell Winston & Che’ Pope

Moderated by Laura Mott, Chief Curator

California-born, Detroit-based artist Tyrrell Winston’s artwork is a result of years of collecting, organizing, and reconfiguring discarded objects. Winston has obsessively collected found objects from the streets of Manhattan, Brooklyn and now Detroit, as a public service, examination of, and fascination with the permanent energy left behind within the objects. Winston’s work also revolves around drawing parallels in the absurdity between the symbolism of contrasting objects. The intentional mixture of these elements examines hope and hopelessness, resurrection and regeneration, vitality and recklessness.

Winston is well known for his basketball wall sculptures that explore the concept of embedded history and how an object’s past can become abstracted. All the basketballs in this series are found objects which Tyrrell manipulates into sculptural shapes as he links them together into a set of predetermined compositions. In an age where connections are intangible and we’ve lost sight of material consequence, Winston’s assemblages remind us that the things we neglect don’t disappear simply because we’ve moved on. His works nudge us to remember the persistent energy that remains within seemingly insignificant records of human existence.

Che’ Pope is a 25-year veteran and award-winning entertainment industry professional dually accomplished in both the creative and executive arenas of the music business.

A talented music producer and composer, Che’s contributions to some of the most impactful, culturally relevant projects of the past two decades garnered him two Grammy awards, and the respect and recognition as a force majeure within his field. As a music producer, he has collaborated with legendary and visionary artists including Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Carlos Santana, Destiny’s Child, Lauryn Hill, Dr. Dre, the Weeknd, Diddy, Kanye West and many more. Che’s skill in successfully honoring/highlighting/each artist’s strong sense of self while at the same time unearthing and discovering new sounds/styles gained him recognition as a master collaborator and influential addition to the creative process.

Having honed his skill as a master collaborator, Che segued into leadership roles within the executive side of the business, working in multiple executive leadership capacities. Most recently, Che has Co-founded with billionaire business mogul Dan Gilbert WRKSHP, a music-based lifestyle company headquartered in downtown Detroit and serves as Head of Upstream at Distrokid.

Che previously served as COO & Staff Producer of GOOD Music Records for 7 years, spearheading creative output, A&R, and marketing. Before that as Senior VP of A&R and Lead Staff Producer at Aftermath Records, Staff Composer for Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control, and Senior VP of A&R for Warner Bros Records, Che proved to be the epitome of an agile left-brain/right-brain thinker.