Africa Past, Present, and Future: Celebrating 65 Years of the MSU African Studies Center @ MSU Broad Art Museum & MSU Main Library, Michigan State University

Africa Past, Present, and Future 

Celebrating 65 Years of the MSU African Studies Center

MSU Broad Art Museum, East Lansing

Through January 18, 2026

MSU Main Library

Through December 19, 2025

Tijani Sitou 

See My Henna (Regardez-mon henne), 1983, printed 2006 

Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, 

Michigan State University, purchase, 2009.41.2

In celebration of the 65th anniversary of Michigan State University’s African Studies Center (ASC), the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University (MSU Broad Art Museum), the MSU Museum, MSU Libraries, and the ASC have partnered on a series of exhibitions marking this milestone year. Africa Past, Present, and Future: Celebrating 65 Years of the MSU African Studies Center invites reflection on the power of collections and object-based learning to expand our understanding of global cultures and our place within them.

“The MSU Broad Art Museum and the ASC have enjoyed a longstanding partnership over the years, and it is our pleasure to shine a light on their important work during this momentous anniversary year,” commented Steven L. Bridges, senior curator and director of curatorial affairs at the MSU Broad Art Museum and co-curator of the project. “As part of the university’s commitment to working with different communities from the African continent, as exemplified by the work of the ASC, the Africana collections on campus and here at the MSU Broad Art Museum have grown to be some of the most important in the United States today. Through these objects we continue to advance teaching and learning at the university and within our wider communities, connecting different peoples and cultures across time and geographies.”

Drawn from the extensive Africana collections of the MSU Museum, MSU Broad Art Museum, and MSU Libraries, these exhibitions explore the University’s deep and evolving relationship with the African continent through art, artifacts, and archival materials. The exhibitions highlight how collections continue to support research, teaching, and public engagement around African cultures.

“These exhibitions are a tribute to the legacy and future of the African Studies Center, as well as to the powerful role that objects play in expanding our understanding of cultures across time and space," said Kurt Dewhurst, curator at the MSU Museum and co-curator of the project. “The MSU Museum is honored to contribute its collections and expertise to this meaningful celebration.”

The exhibitions include textiles, ceramics, carvings, and photographs, and are shaped by a broad team of curators and scholars, including representatives from the MSU Museum, MSU Broad Art Museum, MSU Libraries, and African Studies Center. Materials on view reflect MSU’s longstanding partnerships on the continent, including its foundational role in the establishment of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

“As we celebrate 65 years of the African Studies Center at MSU, we honor a legacy of transformative scholarship, partnership, and impact across Africa and right here in Michigan. It is a special honor to mark this milestone with exhibitions that build on our longstanding collaboration using art and cultural objects to teach about Africa’s diverse histories, peoples, and cultures,” remarked Leo Zulu, director of the African Studies Center. “This exhibition is not just a celebration of our past—it’s an invitation to imagine the future with us. I warmly invite everyone to visit, bring your families, and help spread the word, and I thank our partners at the MSU Museum, MSU Libraries, and the Broad for making this shared vision a reality.”

MSU BROAD ART MUSEUM

MSU MAIN LIBRARY

Michigan State University

broadmuseum.msu.edu

lib.msu.edu

Africa Past, Present, and Future: Celebrating 65 Years of the MSU African Studies Center

MSU Broad Art Museum, July 19, 2025 – January 18, 2026

MSU Main Library,  August 18, 2025 – December 29, 2025

Olga de Amaral @ MFAH, Houston & Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills - To Weave a Rock

Olga de Amaral: To Weave a Rock

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

July 25 - September 19, 2021

OLGA DE AMARAL

Brumas (Mists), 2013

Acrylic, gesso, and cotton on wood

Courtesy of the artist

© Olga de Amaral / Photograph © Diego Amaral

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, presents Olga de Amaral: To Weave a Rock, the first major touring retrospective of the prolific, visionary Colombian artist whose pioneering visual language has helped to transform the fiber arts movement. Co-organized by the MFAH and the Cranbrook Art Museum, the exhibition traces Olga de Amaral’s architectural investigations of the woven form through some 50 works created during the past six decades, ranging from her early Muros (Walls) series to the more recent immersive installation Brumas (Mists).

“This retrospective allows audiences to see the six decades of my work side by side for the first time,” Olga de Amaral said. “To have it open at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is a great honor, as they hold leading collections in both decorative arts and Latin American art in the United States. The exhibition was also co-created with Cranbrook Art Museum, the museum of my alma mater, Cranbrook Academy of Art, which is such an important part of my creative history and where I met my husband, the artist Jim Amaral. This retrospective and publication have been years in the making, and I feel they are a wonderful showcase of my life’s work.” 

An “alchemist artist,” Olga de Amaral has experimented radically with material, composition, and space, transforming flat-woven tapestries into forms that defy the confines of any genre or medium. Co-curators Anna Walker, Assistant Curator, Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design at the MFAH; and Laura Mott, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art and Design at Cranbrook Art Museum, chronicle Amaral’s career through four thematic sections: “Radical Materialism,” “Rebel Warp,” “Alchemy,” and “The Line.” They also devote two galleries to the artist’s immersive Brumas (Mists) and Estelas (Stele) series.

“Olga de Amaral is a leading figure who continues to push the boundaries of the fiber arts movement. Deeply rooted in her Colombian heritage and architectural training, Amaral’s sculptures command our attention with their exploration of color, texture, and structure,” said Gary Tinterow, Director, the Margaret Alkek Williams Chair, MFAH. “We are delighted to partner with the Cranbrook Art Museum to present this comprehensive survey and highlight Amaral as a seminal artist of the last 60 years.”

“Amaral has developed a language all her own within the fiber arts movement through experimentation with the loom and her transformational use of materials,” Walker said. “The MFAH has established the most comprehensive collection of her work in North America. It’s a thrill to present these works alongside other important examples that exemplify her creative spirit.”

Exhibition Overview

After earning an architectural drafting degree in her native Bogotá, Colombia, Olga de Amaral (born 1932) attended the fabric and design weaving program at Michigan’s Cranbrook Academy of Art in the mid-1950s. There, she studied under the renowned Marianne Strengell, who emphasized textile design’s relationship with interior space and its use as an architectural material. When she returned home, Amaral applied Strengell’s philosophies to woven works that also were informed by her environment.

• “Radical Materialism” explores Olga de Amaral’s unconventional use of horsehair, wool, gold leaf, plastics, and other materials that reflect the landscape and culture of Colombia while also utilizing texture, color, and light to create dimensionality and structure. A notable example, the Luz (Light) series from the mid-to-late 1960s, features tapestries of cascading, layered polyurethane that depict water flowing across the Colombian terrain.

• The “Rebel Warp” section illustrates how Olga de Amaral has investigated scale and challenged traditional weaving traditions with innovative plaiting, wrapping, coiling, and warp manipulation. The parallel rods of her groundbreaking series Muros tejidos (Woven Walls) support vertical, lattice-like loops to form distinct structures and shapes; principles she also applied to free-standing sculptures such as Columna en pasteles (Column in Pastels) (1972).

• Embracing the spiritual significance of gold in Colombian culture, Olga de Amaral has made gold leaf a signature material. The “Alchemy” section presents selections from Alquimia (Alchemy), her acclaimed 1980s series of wall-hung tapestries composed of individually woven linen squares lacquered with gesso and gold leaf. Also especially notable are works from Amaral’s immersive series Estelas (Stele), whose suspended structures evoke upright stones.

• The works of “The Line” section incorporate painted, free-hanging threads. Highlights include pieces from the Nudo (Knot) series, whose long, loose linen fibers anchored with knots resemble monumental, draped tassels of magenta, turquoise, and gold. Another work, Agujero Negro (Black Hole) (2016) initially suggests a black void painted on gray fringe, but as viewers pass by, threads waft to reveal a sliver of gold paint that glimmers like sunlight. The immersive Brumas (Mists) (2013), a series of three-dimensional, suspended forms, engulfs viewers in vibrant colors and geometric shapes.

OLGA DE AMARAL

ToWeave a Rock

Exhibition Catalogue

Publication: This exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, Olga de Amaral: To Weave a Rock, authored by co-curators Laura Mott and Anna Walker and co-published by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Arnoldsche Art Publishers. 

Olga de Amaral: To Weave a Rock was organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Cranbrook Art Museum. After Houston it will traveling to the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, in October 2021.

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON - MFAH

1001 Bissonnet, Houston, Texas 77005

www.mfah.org

Claude Monet @ Detroit Institute of Arts - Monet: Framing Life

Monet: Framing Life
DIA - Detroit Institute of Arts
Through March 4, 2018

Claude Monet

“Rounded Flower Bed (Corbeille de fleurs),” 1876 

Oil on canvas 

Detroit Institute of Arts

“Monet: Framing Life” is an intimate exhibition focusing on an important painting in the DIA collection—Claude Monet’s “Rounded Flower Bed (Corbeille de fleurs)” from 1876, formerly known as “Gladioli” and recently retitled based on new research. Claude Monet created this work while living in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil between late 1871 and early 1878, an especially productive time. It was there that he met and worked beside fellow avant-garde painters that formed the group now known as the Impressionists.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

“Claude Monet,” 1872 

Oil on canvas 

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. 

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1985.64.35

This exhibition brings the DIA’s painting together with 10 other Argenteuil paintings by Monet and fellow impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir—including seven major loans from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. In doing so, the exhibition presents a more comprehensive story about the creation of “Rounded Flower Bed (Corbeille de fleurs)” and how it fits into Monet’s body of work, as well as the history of Impressionism more broadly.

A catalog accompanies the exhibition.

This exhibition has been organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts and made possible by the Bonnie Ann Larson Modern European Master Series.

DIA - DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS
5200 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, Michigan 48202
www.dia.org

Cranbrook Art Museum: Grand Reopening Exhibition No Object is an Island: New Dialogues with the Cranbrook Collection

No Object is an Island: New Dialogues with the Cranbrook Collection

Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills

November 11, 2011 - March 25, 2012

The first Exhibition in the Newly Renovated and Expanded Museum Explores Cranbrook’s Continued Influence in the World of Contemporary Art and Design. No Object is an Island: New Dialogues with the Cranbrook Collection will pair the work of 50 leading contemporary artists and designers with an equal number of objects from Cranbrook’s outstanding permanent collection of 20th- and 21st-century art and design. Visitors will discover a Nick Cave Soundsuit side-by-side with a tapestry by Arts and Crafts master May Morris. A conceptual partnership that Maarten Baas projects between himself and Marc Newson meets a very real early collaboration of Eero Saarinen and Charles Eames. And Whitney Biennalist Tony Mattelli’s hyperrealist sculpture, The Hunter, faces off with one of fellow sculptor Kate Clark’s ravishing taxidermy beasts with a human face.

The pairings reinstate the challenging dialogue that has characterized Cranbrook since the revolutionary graduate school and museum opened more than 80 years ago. In so doing, No Object is an Island is an analog for Cranbrook Art Museum itself, the renovation of which transcends common notions of museum practice. For Director Gregory Wittkopp, who has guided the museum as its curator or director for 26 years, No Object is an Island is an opportunity to showcase a cross-section of the museum’s permanent collection—including numerous recent “never-before-seen” acquisitions—while also demonstrating its continued relevancy to contemporary practitioners. “At a moment when most museums would simply trot out their 100 greatest hits, Cranbrook will use its collection to challenge and inspire a new generation of artists and designers and other museum visitors,” says Wittkopp. “While the 20th-century museum saw its mission as preservation, we are leading the charge of 21st-century museums to educate through objects.”

Often called the American Bauhaus, Cranbrook Academy of Art has long been hailed for its prescient embrace of interdisciplinary art and design education. No Object is an Island and the enhanced museum will embody and update that tradition. Nowhere is this more evident than in the exhibition’s unexpected pairings, such as that of Cranbrook’s legendary designer, Harry Bertoia and contemporary metalsmith Dorothea Pruhl. Here we find Bertoia working not at the expected scale of his iconic furniture or Sound Sculptures but as a jeweler, next to one of Europe’s most influential craftswomen. Or the dialogue between Asymptote Architecture and Eero Saarinen, both of whom have helped redefine the form of architecture and how we model it. In the case of Asymptote, visitors will see a “fly-through” projection of their award winning, 2011 YAS Hotel in Dubai next to a rare original model of Saarinen’s structurally daring Dulles International Airport. Separated by half a century of thought and technology, both buildings nevertheless share a tradition of radical form-making (and advanced technology) that are characteristic of Cranbrook’s leading role in contemporary architecture.

No Object is an Island is organized around six themes—Craft, Site, Comfort, Resistance, Process, and Fiction– each of which connotes a period of innovation at Cranbrook Academy of Art and presents a body of work that suggests common points of departure in the pursuit of creative expression and original art. While “Craft,” for example, reflects the important role that Cranbrook’s founder George Booth played in shaping the American Arts and Crafts movement (giving it physical form through the architecture and collections of Cranbrook), “Process” explores the work of contemporary artists who give physical form to the activity of making. “Comfort” suggests both the Academy’s role as the cradle of mid-century modernism, as well as the work of contemporary designers who are continuing to challenge and redefine the nature of domestic and work environments. The themes of “No Object” are by no means exhaustive; nor are they meant to be prescriptive. Instead, they offer a starting point for exploring the remarkable influence Cranbrook has had on contemporary creative culture.

No Object is an Island will open on 11-11-11 in conjunction with an eleven-day program of events, lectures, films and performances—during which the museum will be open 11 hours each day—and will run through March 25, 2012. This is the first of many exhibitions that will build on Cranbrook Art Museum’s mission to bridge visual art and design, scholarship and accessibility, tradition and innovation in its programs, and in so doing, document the ongoing creative achievements of the faculty and alumni of Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Curators: Gregory Wittkopp, Director of Cranbrook Art Museum, and Sarah Margolis-Pineo, the Art Museum’s Jeanne and Ralph Graham Collections Fellow, are the co-curators of No Object is an Island.

Publication: Cranbrook Art Museum will publish a fully illustrated catalog in conjunction with this exhibition. The catalog will include an introductory essay by Gregory Wittkopp with section essays by Emily Zilber (Craft), Jana Cephas (Site), Reed Kroloff (Comfort), Sarah Margolis-Pineo (Resistance), Sarah Turner (Process), and Christopher Ho (Fiction).

CRANBROOK ART MUSEUM, BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI

Cranbrook Academy of Art

www.cranbrookart.edu

Cranbrook Academy Art Museum: History, Renovation and Expansion

HISTORY OF CRANBROOK ACADEMY OF ART AND ART MUSEUM, "AMERICA'S BAUHAUS"

Founded by newspaper magnate George Gough Booth and his wife Ellen Scripps Booth, Cranbrook Academy of Art and Art Museum represent an ongoing educational experiment that the whole Cranbrook Educational Community embodies—"an original and radical plan to integrate all the arts in a perfect ensemble," according to Museum Director Gregory Wittkopp.

Cranbrook Academy of Art has been described as "America's Bauhaus," in recognition of the singular impact the school – one of the nation's leading graduate schools of art, architecture, and design – has as a place of artistic creation. Charles and Ray Eames, Florence Knoll, Harry Bertoia, Ralph Rapson, and Eero Saarinen created mid-century modernism at Cranbrook. Michael and Katherine McCoy started Product Semantics at the school. Daniel Libeskind, Jun Kaneko, Hani Rashid, Nick Cave, Richard De Vore, Tony Matelli, Niels Diffrient, Ed Fella, John Glick, Duane Hanson, Jack Lenor Larsen, and Lorraine Wild all studied or taught at Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Today, the Academy graduates more than 70 young artists and designers each year. The school's faculty of ten Artists-in-Residence are award-winning practitioners in their fields with work exhibited at some the world's most distinguished venues, including the Venice Biennale, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum, The Detroit Institute of Arts, the Museum of Modern Art, The American Academy of Arts, and many others.

Reed Kroloff, Director of Cranbrook Academy of Art and Art Museum, says, "People may not realize it, but Cranbrook art and design is everywhere. Whether you're sitting in an Eames office chair or riding in a new subway car in New York City, you are experiencing design by Cranbrook graduates [Antenna Design, which created the most recent subway cars, is co-directed by Masamichi Udagawa, a Cranbrook graduate]. The impact of this school on American life is ongoing and profound."

The Art Museum represents the culmination of Booth's plan. The Museum's collection of art and objects includes sculpture, paintings, models and drawings, ceramics, glass, furniture, textiles, and metalwork, and it is renowned for its variety – with the decorative, applied and fine arts all represented–its depth, and its unrivaled quality. Among the many treasures owned by Cranbrook Art Museum are works by Agnes Martin, Donald Judd, Bridget Riley, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Maija Grotell, Peter Voulkos, Eliel, Eero, Loja and Pipsan Saarinen, Harry Bertoia, Florence Knoll, Marianne Strengell, Marshall Fredericks, Carl Milles, Arthur Neville Kirk, Paul Manship, and William Morris.

CRANBROOK ACADEMY OF ART AND ART MUSEUM: RENOVATION AND EXPANSION

Designed originally by Eliel and Eero Saarinen (with later buildings by Steven Holl, Lake/Flato, Rafael Moneo, Peter Rose, and Tod Williams and Billie Tsien), Cranbrook is a National Historic Landmark, located on 320 acres of rolling, wooded landscape approximately 18 miles northwest of downtown Detroit. And, on a campus famous for its architecture, Cranbrook Art Museum is considered one of Eliel Saarinen's masterpieces.

The complete renovation and expansion accomplishes two things, according to Museum Director Wittkopp. "On a fundamental level, we are making a commitment to the infrastructure of the museum by raising Saarinen's masterwork to the standards of 21st-century museum practice, in terms of mechanical systems, lighting, communications, and other technology," he says. "But Cranbrook is, ultimately, a community where art and life are inextricably linked, and we believe that a museum and its collections are important only if they can continue to inspire new generations of artists." To that end, and in keeping with Cranbrook's tradition as a center of educational innovation, the new Collections Wing creates a model that is unprecedented: a museum whose collections in their entirety are visible and accessible. "The Academy has always seen the collection as a critical component of our pedagogy," explains Kroloff. "So we decided early on to create a very different kind of environment for viewing it. Instead of seeing only the fraction of the collection that most museums offer, our students, faculty, and visitors will have access to all 6,000 objects in a way that's never been possible before. Cranbrook Art Museum and its collections will be an integrated teaching environment like no other."

In order to accommodate this program, the building project encompassed two primary aspects: renovating and restoring the original Saarinen museum, and adding the 20,000-square-foot Collections Wing, where much of the collection will be displayed. Creating a conservation environment within the existing building required substantial improvements to achieve current standards for lighting, temperature, and humidity. Restoration of the Saarinen building also included a new roof, windows, and brick repair, as well as the disassembly and rebuilding of the building's famed plazas and ceremonial exterior stairs, which will now include a snow melting system that eliminates the need for destructive winter salting. An original Saarinen-designed coffered gallery lighting system (believed to be the first of its kind, and the forerunner of Eero Saarinen's revolutionary integrated lighting systems at the nearby General Motors Technical Center) was also restored.

The new Collections Wing is located to the northeast of the historic Saarinen museum and houses the new, visible collections spaces, a woodshop, photography studio, loading dock, and a 10'x15' freight elevator to facilitate the transport of artworks within the building. A seminar/conference space is intended for focused instruction regarding the collection. The SmithGroup was the architect for both the restoration and the new building.

The $22 million-project at Cranbrook Art Museum was funded by Cranbrook Educational Community as one of several important restoration projects made possible by a recently completed $181 million Comprehensive Fundraising Campaign. Of this total, the Academy of Art and Art Museum raised nearly $46 million in annual and endowed support for programming, financial aid, faculty support, and new equipment. The $10 million lead gift to the Campaign was received from Maxine and Stuart Frankel and family.

After the two-year construction project Cranbrook Art Museum will reopen on 11-11-11.

CRANBROOK ART MUSEUM, BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI
Cranbrook Academy of Art
www.cranbrookart.edu

Young Artists Exhibition at MONA in Detroit, Michigan

Museum of New Art, Pontiac, Michigan

The Museum of New Art's (MONA) new show reveals more than meets the eye. Head to the museum's Pontiac complex to see "The Next Big Thing", featuring new work by young artists, working in all disciplines.

Some standouts include Cynthia Randolph's studies of time and timing depicted in a series of digital photographs. One chronicles one day of urine flushing down toilet bowls, resulting in a grid of colors and gradations in light that don't look anything like what they are. Another work discovers the beauty of a surgical mask, light and disposable but able to protect from disease. The artist previous exhibition includes two National Scholastic Exhibit at Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washingthon, DC, in 1992 and 1994, A Sculpture Show at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1998) and two exhibits at Melting Point Gallery, San Francisco, California in 2001 and 2003.

Roland Lusk has created a room installation that takes you into a verdant yet somewhat sickly forest. Leaves of green fabric are suspended from the ceiling and stuck on the walls along with painted white tree fungus and antlers. The walls are papered in an oversized digital print - a cowhide tinted grass-green.

Michelle Hinebrook creates highly textured and veiled paintings – some pure abstractions, others with hidden figures – on tiles covered with netting culled from produce bags found on fruits and vegetables.

Other artists' include Kelly Rosebrock who has captured "fingerprints" of individual cell phones in her sparse, colorful photographs; Narine Kchikian, who curated the show, has created a minimalist room installation where illusions come into play; Georgia Vandewater, who creates paintings in vinyl that are variations on Da Vinci's "Circle of Man"; the artist Unholy Erection has created a funhouse of gender coding in his installation of photos and video; and Gabriel Hillebrand whose work in the Annex on the first floor combines grids, string  and books into a playful sculpture.

THE NEXT BIG THING
November 13 - December 18, 2004

MONA - MUSEUM OF NEW ART, DETROIT
7 N. Saginaw St.
Pontiac, Michigan 48342

Punch’s Progress: A Century of American Puppetry Exhibition

Punch's Progress: A Century of American Puppetry

Traveling Detroit Institute of Arts Exhibition

Venues: September 2000 - April 2002

Dancing on nimble fingers or twirling from strings, puppets have taught and entertained generations from America's earliest days. The Detroit Institute of Arts traces this amazing trajectory in Punch's Progress: A Century of American Puppetry. Touring statewide, the exhibition provides an opportunity to enjoy the history, wonder and artistry of puppets. Punch's Progress is one of many traveling exhibitions the museum organizes to help fulfill its mission of extending its reach to various communities.

The Detroit Institute of Arts is home to one of the most historically important puppet collections in North America. Drawn from the critically acclaimed Paul McPharlin Collection, this exhibition includes fanciful marionettes, rod, hand and shadow puppets that delight audiences and reveal the importance of American puppetry and puppeteers. Included are diverse works, ranging from American wooden puppets to elegant marionettes of popular icons, such as entertainer Josephine Baker, skater Sonja Henie and former President Franklin D. Roosevelt as Punch's baby.

Puppet shows were popular in frontier America, and by the turn of the century elaborately detailed figures performed to live audiences in music halls. Professional puppet troupes toured the vaudeville theater circuit, often accompanied by full orchestras. During the 1920s, puppetry became recognized and appreciated by educational and arts organizations, and classic literature was often performed. During the late 1930s to early 1940s, cabaret puppetry for adults was popular, and the first puppets for a growing new medium, television, were created. Puppetry quickly became popular mass entertainment, often directed at children. Punch's Progress explores the wonder and evolution of this popular art.

Punch's Progress: A Century of American Puppetry will appear in the following venues:

Muskegon Museum of Art, September 7 - October 22, 2000

Detroit Institute of Arts, November 19 - December 31, 2000

Meadow Brook Art Gallery, January 12 - February 25, 2001

Port Huron Museum, May 5 - June 24, 2001

Ella Sharp Museum, November 17, 2001 - January 13, 2002

Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, February 1 - April 28, 2002

This exhibition was organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts and is supported by a generous grant from the Consumers Energy Foundation. Additional support provided by the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs and the City of Detroit.

DIA’s News: Creation of the GM Center for African American Art at Detroit Institute of Arts

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Creation of a Center for African American Art in Detroit, Michigan

Museum News > Michigan > Detroit > Detroit Institute of Arts

The creation of the General Motors Center for African American Art was announced by the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) as a new curatorial department and resource center at the museum. The Center is named in recognition of a $5 million donation from the General Motors Foundation to the DIA's capital campaign.

The Center will act as an independent department within the museum's existing structure, and will be staffed by a curator, assistant curator and administrative assistant. A national search for staff is currently underway.

"The development of the General Motors Center for African American Art is a natural extension of the DIA's commitment to African American art, and will provide a stimulating new dimension to our collections," said Graham W.J. Beal, director of the DIA. "We intend to create a center of excellence in this area, which will prove to be an invaluable resource for scholars and collectors, as it will house a specialized library related to works by African American artists."

The Center is a testament to the DIA's and GM's commitment to serving the community. "General Motors is dedicated to recognizing the achievements and influence of African Americans," said General Motors vice president and chief financial officer, Michael Losh. "GM is proud to support this extraordinary Center that will enrich and expand the breadth of the museum in both culture and importance."

Early emphasis will be on research that will lead to special exhibitions, lectures and symposia. Additionally, the Center will provide a place where talented African American students can gain valuable experience in a stimulating environment to prepare them for an art museum career.

"I've spoken with Christy Matthews, director of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, and we agreed that there could be interesting opportunities for collaboration," Beal said. "While it is difficult to be specific at this early stage, these might include loans of art to parallel exhibitions, joint educational initiatives, and mutual programming around exhibitions."

With a solid core of artistic expertise, intellectual acumen, a powerfully growing collection and a vitally interested local community, the DIA expects the Center will quickly gain national prominence and become a leading contributor to the field of study in African American art. The Center's work will be disseminated through publications such as exhibition catalogues and seminar proceedings.

The DIA is located at 5200 Woodward Avenue in the University Cultural Center in Detroit, Michigan.

DIA’s upcoming exhibition: Punch's Progress: A Century of American Puppetry

Updated post

Michael Kenna, Detroit Institute of Arts - Industrial Revelations: Photographs by Michael Kenna of the Rouge and Other Sites

Industrial Revelations: Photographs by Michael Kenna of the Rouge and Other Sites

Detroit Institute of Arts

Through February 11, 1996

Photographs by Michael Kenna are featured in the exhibition Industrial Revelations: Photographs by Michael Kenna of the Rouge and Other Sites at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Included are approximately 60 of Michael Kenna's photographs of the Rouge Steel plant in Dearborn and 20 views of industrial sites in England.

This new series of photographs was inspired by Charles Sheeler's legendary photographs of the Rouge plant commissioned in 1927 by the Ford Motor Company. However, while Sheeler concentrated on the interior of the steel-making complex, Michael Kenna's work focuses on the exterior seen in views made at dawn, at dusk and during the night. His photographs are distinguished by their dynamic design, unusual viewpoints, and dramatic contrasts of light and shade.

Industrial smoke also plays a major role in Michael Kenna's work. In the exhibition catalog he comments, "I favor the power of suggestion over descriptive documentation and often use smoke, steam or mist in my work. These elements obscure details, simplify forms, strengthen foreground graphic shapes, and simultaneously tone down background distractions."

Born in a small industrial town in Lancashire, England, Michael Kenna, now based in San Francisco, has always felt at home in industrial environments. His striking and strangely beautiful views of the Rouge plant are contrasted with the photographs he made in the 1980s of nuclear plants in his native England.

THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS

5200 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, Michigan 48202

www.dia.org