Tiff Massey opened her solo show at the DIA tonight. Four galleries in the contemporary wing. Eleven works in total. The most ambitious installation by a Detroit artist the museum has ever staged. She has the run of the place for a year, through May 11, 2025. Born in Detroit in 1982, Massey is the youngest artist ever given a solo exhibition at the DIA, and the first Black woman to earn an MFA in metalsmithing from Cranbrook.
The title, 7 Mile + Livernois, is the intersection in northwest Detroit where Massey grew up. It is the historic center of Detroit's Black business and fashion district. Massey trained as a metalsmith at Cranbrook, finished her MFA in 2011, and has spent the years since taking the language of jewelry and blowing it up to architectural scale.
Whatupdoe is the room you can't miss. A 15,000-pound stainless steel chain shaped like the Detroit greeting, set up so you can walk through it. Museum liability rules will probably keep you from climbing it. Massey wanted you to.
Two of the new pieces sit in conversation with works from the DIA's collection. Baby Bling, a stack of metal beads, woven rope, and brass set up like hair knockers, was made in response to Donald Judd's Stack from 1969. Quilt Code 6 plays opposite Louise Nevelson's Homage to the World. Massey has called this part of the show the start of an art battle, comparing it to the Drake and Kendrick beef from earlier in the year, with the obvious caveat that Judd and Nevelson can't return fire.
I've Got Bundles and I Got Flewed Out (Green) uses canvas, beads, and dyed Kanekalon hair. I Remember Way Back When is eleven oversized snap-tight kiddie barrettes in red, scaled up from the kind grandmothers used in the 1980s. Everyday Arsenal is steel from 2018. The colors throughout the show, black, red, green, and gold, are the Pan-African flag. Influences cited by Massey across the four rooms: traditional African art, minimalist sculpture, 1980s hip hop, the architecture and design she grew up around.
The DIA commissioned the four new sculptures. The museum paid for fabrication; Massey kept ownership. Lead support came from the Alan Kidd Estate, the Gilbert Family Foundation, and Cadillac. Curators Juana Williams and Katie Pfohl initiated the project and asked Massey to respond to the museum's permanent collection. Pfohl had joined the DIA from New Orleans less than two years before the opening, and has called the show a love letter to the city.
Massey is also developing an art and community space at the same 7 Mile and Livernois corner the show is named for.
Free for residents of Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties, as always.
5200 Woodward Avenue, Midtown.
