The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) is honoring regional, Indigenous artists in a striking new exhibition.
“Contemporary Anishinaabe Art: A Continuation” is a love letter to the Anishinaabe people — specifically the Ojibwe (Chippewa), Odawa (Ottawa) and Potawatomi (Pottawatomi) nations of the Council of Three Fires — who originally populated the land on which Detroit sits. The show features more than 60 Anishinaabe artists from Michigan and across the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada.
DIA director Salvador Salort-Pons praised exhibit curator Dr. Denene De Quintal, the museum’s assistant curator of Native American art, and shared a bit of the process that led to the show’s opening.
“To create the most accurate depiction of contemporary Anishinaabe art,” he said, “an advisory committee of Ojibwe, Ottawa and Potawatomi artists helped shape the exhibition. Their invaluable insight in collaboration with Dr. De Quintal has helped with selecting artworks to solidifying themes to brainstorming public programming ideas, among others. We’re deeply grateful for the time, expertise, and care they have poured into this exhibition.
“Featuring more than 90 works across a range of media, the show challenges long-held stereotypes about what Native American art is – and what it can be. The show will highlight the range of Anishinaabe art and will include basketry, beadwork, birchbark work, clothing, film, graphic art, jewelry, painting, pottery, sculpture, and woodwork.”
An emotional homecoming
Minnesota Ojibwe artist Kent Estey, whose painting “Debwewin” (Ojibwe for “truth”) is part of the show, described the exhibit as “too emotional.”
“The tears were coming,” he said, “and as we were going through the exhibit, I could feel the spiritual part of it, and it just became kind of overwhelming. This is the most beautiful exhibit, not just because I have a piece here. It’s just done so well and represents us in a lot of times. Anishinaabe artists, we get put in a box: You have to create art, create art this way, it’s got to fit our mold and our expectations of you, do this and don’t do that. This exhibit tells our story, yet in a contemporary way.
“I always tell people, remember, we apply traditional skills and practices that we’ve passed on for generations, but we’re contemporary people. We’re here. Don’t keep us in that box back there. We’re here today, and we’re doing beautiful work, and I think this expresses that really, really well. As I walk through here, I see the work of my colleagues and people and artists that I know have worked so hard, and some of them have never even been seen in a setting like this before. This is my first major, national gallery.”
Honoring the ancestors
Artist Jonathan Thunder, whose large and whimsical “Basil’s Dream” hangs in the exhibit, also served on its advisory committee. The painting pays tribute to Anishinaabe and Canadian writer, scholar and historian Basil H. Johnston.
“I grew up in the Twin Cities,” said Thunder, “so (Anishinaabe culture) was something that I had to learn about through reading. And Basil Johnston was one of the first introductions that I really had to digging into it. Growing up in the Cities, you are exposed to certain pitfalls that every youth has, opportunities for self-sabotage; reading Basil Johnston’s books and digging into my art with that reflecting in mind helped keep me out of trouble and steer me towards being an artist.
“I want to say that one of his first books covered Ojibwe culture. It was published in 1976 or ’77, and in 1978, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act was passed. Prior to that, it was illegal to practice our culture in the United States of America. These were tools that allowed the government to take children out of their homes miles and miles away and put them into boarding schools, where sometimes they would never return.”
Thunder called Johnston “ahead of his time.”
“There was progress being made in making our culture legal,” he said, “so that we could practice it without punishment. He was one of the strongest advocates for finding ways for people to have access to it, because once your culture becomes hard to find, well, that’s the beginning of colonizing a person from the inside out.
“When I was trying to figure out how to finish this painting, I was thinking about our political times. Basil Johnston had never had his portrait painted by any painter, as far as I know, and having so much to thank him for, I thought, ‘I’m going to do it. I have a platform, I have the perfect venue.’ I thought, ‘How fun would it be to have his likeness in this exhibit?’”
Seismically instrumental Anishinaabe artist Norval Morrisseau died in 2007, but Morrisseau estate president and CEO Corey Dingle was on hand to speak for the artist’s works on display.
“It was important for us to come here for the fact that the DIA has its first Indigenous curator in 13 years, the first Indigenous show in 30 years, and now we’re a voice to what’s been named the number one museum in North America two years in a row, that is the heartbeat of Detroit.”
Dingle said Morrisseau is “known as the grandfather of contemporary Indigenous art.”
“Norval was a young man of about 18 years old,” Dingle relayed, “and he was dying of tuberculosis, and he had a vision in that coma that he needed to preserve his culture by painting the legends and sharing it with the European society around him. When he emerged from his coma, he discovered that there was a law that was attempting to systematically erase the Indigenous culture from Canada. You weren’t allowed to paint your culture, you weren’t allowed to dance, you weren’t allowed to cook your food, do your drum beating, any of that.
“So, realizing this law would prohibit him from painting in their traditional style, he had to create a contemporary style to get around those laws so he could share the culture. At that time, he was only allowed to go to the garbage dump, to the church, or to the mill to work. It was illegal for an Indigenous person to go into the town. And so he would go to the church, and he would see the stained-glass windows. And he would go to the garbage dump to learn about the European people around him. They were mostly throwing out magazines, but they were also throwing away comic books. So then, he merged his Indigenous, pictographic, traditional art with stained-glass window, with comic books, and created a new language that pulled Indigenous art out of antiquity into a contemporary form.”
Dingle said it’s important to hold exhibitions such as this, for the purpose of acknowledging truth. During his time in Detroit, he visited the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, as well.
“I was, as a Canadian,” he said, “tremendously moved to sit in Rosa Parks’ bus seat at the Henry Ford. I stayed there for, like, an hour. It’s important to have these exhibitions because I want to heal. I want to acknowledge the truth, I want to reconcile, but I have to embrace it and experience it and have that tactile feel for my soul to heal, so we can all move on as people. That is why these shows are so important now.
“Morrisseau recognized that every single one of these works has some kind of terrible past attached to it. That everything is going to be charged. We’re not dealing with a bowl of fruit here.”
While Morrisseau was the first contemporary Indigenous artist to begin sharing his culture, he paid a hefty price within it, Dingle notes.
“He got ostracized from his own community for it,” he said. “But also, he was the very first Indigenous artist to have a solo exhibition in a major gallery, in 1961. He was the first Indigenous artist to have an exhibition on the international stage in ’69. In 2006, he was the first Indigenous artist to have a solo exhibition in a national gallery, and recently, the first Indigenous artist to do a major installation in a church at the national level. In 1978, he was the first Indigenous artist to have a commercialized coffee table book. He trailblazed by taking a lot of kicks and a lot of abuses along the way to open it up for this generation. (At the DIA), I’m focused on the new people, the people that are standing on his shoulders and leading the next generation.”
Making it happen
Curator De Quintal said it took about two years to bring the exhibit to fruition, and that it’s deeply meaningful to share it on Anishinaabe territory.
“It’s wonderful, to tell you the truth,” she said. “the ability to highlight these artists and their works. When you see and read the art labels, those statements are their words. Nothing’s coming out of my mouth. Nothing’s coming from the institution. This is the artist; this is their viewpoint. This is how they want their works portrayed. I want people to really challenge their perspectives of Native American art. There are so many stereotypes associated with it. I want people to break down those expectations.
“I think this show does that. And you get to hear it and see it through the artists and their works. I want people to really embrace that, learn a little bit of (language) Anishinaabemowin, keep that language going, because that was something that the advisors really wanted to stress: The language is alive, people are still speaking it. I want people to take some of the story with them, as well, and recognize that Anishinaabe people are their friends, their neighbors, and they create amazing art.”
“I think it’s pretty cool that so many different kinds of people are going to see this (exhibit),” Thunder said. “We come to museums to learn about each other and view each other’s perspectives. If they can come here and have a great experience and be inspired, and find some joy, then I think they’ll have a little glimpse of how Anishinaabe culture works.”
Estey expressed surprise and gratitude at care, sweep and inclusion of the exhibit.
“When you come from Minnesota on the White Earth Reservation, and when you live out in the woods, you think, ‘Is my art ever going to be seen? What I’ve been creating for years and years – will anybody ever see this? Will they appreciate it?’ And the DIA has done such a beautiful job of honoring us as Native people.
“I am thrilled. I’m just thrilled.”
“Contemporary Anishinaabe Art: A Continuation” remains on view at the DIA through April 5, 2026.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Landmark DIA exhibit of regional Native American art is first in decades
Reporting by Duante Beddingfield, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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