The Detroit Museum of Arts Confronts Art History While Shaping Its Future

"When he penned that text a century ago, Locke, the eminent philosopher of the Harlem Renaissance, spoke on what he viewed as the popular distortion of "the African spirit," a caricature, he argued, that obscured the true character of its descendent: African American artistic expression. He characterized this creative temperament as "free, exuberant, emotional, sentimental and human" and shaped by African Americans' "particular experience in America and the emotional upheaval of its trials and ordeals.""

"In 1925, Jim Crow laws, while most prevalent in the South, had seeped into every aspect of American culture, including its art history. The museum of Locke's imagination becomes an instrument of repair: correcting misread contexts; releasing cultures from stagnant encyclopedic silos; and insisting that even artists working in ancient traditions be recognized as citizens of the future. Left unevolved, the museum only bolsters an architecture of exclusion, one that dictates whose stories are told-and how."

"This fall, the Detroit Institute of Arts gestured toward Locke's ambitious vision of the potential of museums with its reinstalled African American galleries. They have been relocated from the back of the museum to an unmissable spot beside Diego Rivera's iconic Detroit Industry Murals (1932-33). Complementing this display is "Contemporary Anishinaabe Art: A Continuum" (through April 5), the first comprehensive survey of art from the Indigenous inhabitants of the Great Lakes region."

Alain Locke argued that museums had untapped potential as instruments of cultural education and criticized distortions of "the African spirit" that obscured African American artistic expression. He described the creative temperament as "free, exuberant, emotional, sentimental and human," shaped by African Americans' particular American experiences and emotional upheavals. Museums can become instruments of repair by correcting misread contexts, freeing cultures from encyclopedic silos, and recognizing artists working in ancient traditions as future citizens. Left unchanged, museums perpetuate exclusion by dictating which stories are told. The Detroit Institute of Arts relocated African American galleries beside Rivera's Detroit Industry Murals and is showing a comprehensive survey of Great Lakes Indigenous art.

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