The DIA's first major Native American show in 30 years

The Detroit Institute of Arts has opened Contemporary Anishinaabe Art: A Continuation, the museum's first major Native American exhibition in more than 30 years. It opened September 28 and stays up through April 5, 2026.

The show is one of the largest presentations of contemporary Native American art ever staged in the Midwest, according to the DIA. More than 60 Anishinaabe artists are in it, drawn from 21 tribal nations across Michigan and the wider Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada. Over 90 works fill the galleries.

Dr. Denene De Quintal, the DIA's assistant curator of Native American art, built the exhibition with an advisory board of Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi artists who guided the choices throughout. De Quintal has described that collaboration as the foundation of the project, with multiple meetings across the year and an in-person visit to the museum.

The range of work is wide on purpose. The galleries hold basketry, beadwork, birchbark, clothing, film, graphic design, jewelry, painting, pottery, sculpture, and woodwork, along with augmented reality. The point, De Quintal has said, is to push back on a narrow idea of what Native American art is allowed to be. "Native American artists are living and creating today, in cities, in diverse communities, across media, and their work reflects that," she said in a DIA interview. The exhibition title leans the same way, treating Anishinaabe art as a continuation rather than something fixed in the past.

The original plan was smaller. De Quintal has said the team first expected to show around 40 works, then expanded the checklist once they saw the quality of what artists submitted.

Wall labels appear in both English and Anishinaabemowin, an original language of the Great Lakes. Anyone with a tribal-issued ID is admitted free during the run, and admission is always free for residents of Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties.

DIA director Salvador Salort-Pons framed the exhibition as a milestone for the museum. "This exhibition marks a major moment for the DIA as we celebrate the vibrant, living cultures of the Anishinaabe and their profound contributions to contemporary art," Salort-Pons said in the museum's announcement.

A full illustrated catalogue, published by Yale University Press, accompanies the show with essays on contemporary Anishinaabe art. Lead support came from the Ford Foundation, with major support from Jennifer Adderley and the Henry Luce Foundation.

Contemporary Anishinaabe Art: A Continuation runs through April 5, 2026, at the Detroit Institute of Arts, 5200 Woodward Avenue in Midtown.