DETROIT, MICH.- The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) announced today that its reimagined Modern and Contemporary Art Galleries, the first comprehensive reinstallation of both collections in nearly 20 years, will open to the public on Sunday, November 15, 2026. Showcasing local artists alongside national and international voices, this new chapter for the galleries will highlight the city’s creative legacy through bold new acquisitions and cross-cultural connections. Beloved masterworks appear in fresh contexts, joined by recently acquired objects and rarely displayed works that expand and energize the stories told throughout the galleries.
Together, the two permanent gallery installations will show more than 375 works tracing more than 150 years of artistic innovation, from the mid-19th century to today. The DIA’s modern art galleries will present artists and designers working in Europe and the Americas through the mid-20th century, while the contemporary art rooms will feature more than 120 works from the 1950s to the present across 10 thematic galleries. Throughout both, Detroit takes center stage: the Modern galleries include space dedicated to Michigan designers, and the contemporary art galleries spotlight 25 artists with Detroit connections, including at least one work by Detroit artists in every gallery room.
“The opening of our new modern and contemporary art galleries marks the culmination of an inclusive and ambitious vision for how we present the art of our time,” said Salvador Salort-Pons, Mary Anne and Eugene A. Gargaro Jr. Director, President, and CEO of the Detroit Institute of Arts. “Woven throughout these rooms are works by Detroit artists, placed alongside celebrated names from around the world, so that our audiences will see their own city, histories, and experiences reflected on our walls. These galleries affirm that Detroit is not only a place where great art is shown, but where it is made, and they will inspire generations to come to imagine their own place in that story.”
The opening completes the transformation of the DIA’s second-floor North Wing, which began with the reinstalled African American art galleries that debuted in October 2025 beside Diego Rivera’s iconic Detroit Industry Murals in Rivera Court. Together, the project reimagines the presentation of the DIA's African American, Modern, and Contemporary art galleries. Each redesign was developed to enhance the visitor experience of one of America’s largest encyclopedic art museums, and to bring recently acquired works into view for the first time.
Savoy Ballroom, Reginald Marsh, 1931
Modern Art at the DIA
The modern art era brought sweeping and often turbulent change, and artists and designers responded by experimenting boldly with content, materials, form, and technique. Some embraced emerging technologies while others returned to traditional craft. Together, the works range from representation to abstraction, and from sharp social critique to explorations of a growing consumer culture.
“Our newly reinstalled modern galleries invite visitors to experience the collection in new and unexpected ways, placing familiar works in fresh contexts that underscore the innovative spirit of modernism,” said Jill Shaw, Head of the James Pearson Duffy Department of Modern and Contemporary Art and Rebecca A. Boylan and Thomas W. Sidlik Curator of European Art, 1850–1970, at the DIA. “New acquisitions and rarely exhibited paintings, sculptures, ceramics, glass, furniture and film allow us to tell richer, more connected stories about this transformative period. A dedicated presentation of midcentury designers whose careers began in Michigan brings an important regional perspective to these narratives, highlighting our region’s contributions to modern design and deepening the galleries’ connection to our communities.”
The DIA’s modern art holdings have grown substantially through acquisitions and gifts since the galleries were last installed in 2007. The reinstallation features more than 250 works, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, glass, furniture, and film. The galleries highlight artists who shaped the foundations of modern art, including Gustave Courbet, douard Manet, Claude Monet, Auguste Rodin, Paul Cezanne, Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Hector Guimard, Maurice Denis, and Vilhelm Hammershi. They are joined by representatives of the early 20th-century European avant-gardes, among them Paula Modersohn-Becker, Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky, Gabriele Mnter, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Mara Blanchard, Salvador Dal, Joan Mir, Alice Rahon, and Henry Moore, as well as postwar innovators such as Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Soulages, and Alberto Giacometti.
Reclining Female, Henry Moore, 1945
In reenvisioning its presentation of modern art, the DIA has committed to reflecting its home and community, and Detroit’s historic role as a hub of 20th-century craft and design is explored in depth. A dedicated gallery highlights midcentury designers whose careers launched in Michigan, including Ray and Charles Eames, Eero and Pipsan Saarinen, Harry Bertoia, and Alexander Girard.
The Motor City’s automotive styling legacy is also showcased through the display of automotive concept art—a new collecting area for the museum. A newly acquired lamp by Pattyn Products was designed and manufactured on Detroit’s Harper Avenue in the mid 1940s. With a stepped, cylindrical spun aluminum base and a paper shade caged within a stack of metal rings, the work recalls the automotive parts and radiator grilles that populated the hordes of car manufacturing plants operating throughout the city.
Gabriele Mnter’s striking landscape Kochel, Snowy Landscape with Houses (1909) belongs to the artist’s pivotal period, when she forged a radically new approach to painting. In this work, on view in the German expressionism gallery, broad, simplified forms and swaths of unmixed, vivid color intensify visual contrasts and amplify its expressive power.
Included in the reenvisioned and expanded presentation of surrealism is the newly acquired Landscape with Telephones in a Dish (1939) by Salvador Dal—the first painting by the infamous artist to enter the DIA’s collection.
Portal, Jack Craig, 2023
Contemporary Art at the DIA
The contemporary art reinstallation recognizes Detroit as a vital creative center within a global conversation about art’s role in resistance, reinvention, and revolution. Each of the 10 galleries has its own theme, exploring history and memory, media and politics, and the transformative power of love and loss. The galleries also continue the story of the DIA’s African American art collection from 1980 to the present, presenting these artists as part of a broader global story.
“This reinstallation puts Detroit at the center of a global story that affirms the DIA’s commitment to the creative communities of our region and fosters international connections that invite collective thinking and action. Throughout these galleries, artists are visionaries and changemakers who inspire new thinking about culture, creativity, and community,” says Katie Pfohl, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Detroit Insitute of Arts.
Returning favorites by David Hammons, Eva Hesse, Donald Judd, Charles McGee, Mickalene Thomas, Joan Mitchell, Nam June Paik, and Shahzia Sikander anchor the installation. They are joined by recent acquisitions from artists including Firelei Bez, Raven Halfmoon, Matthew Angelo Harrison, Nicholas Hlobo, Tiff Massey, Thomas J. Price, Mohammed Sami, and Nari Ward.
In refreshing its presentation of contemporary art, the DIA represents Detroit as a vital creative center, showcasing the city’s remarkable community of artists through recent acquisitions supporting today’s creatives, and by presenting works from storage rarely seen by the public. Each gallery within the contemporary galleries will feature at least one work by artists who are from, live in, or have worked in metro Detroit, including Cay Bahnmiller, McArthur Binion, Tyree Guyton, Carole Harris, Mario Moore, Julie Mehretu, and Gordon Newton, among many others.
Family Album II, Mohammed Sami, 2022–2023
Detroit-born artist Mario Moore’s painting The Council (2021) represents the collective power of artists, painting himself among a group portrait of three other artists, discussing how to change the world.
Inaugurating the new wing is A Place Beyond (2025), a monumental sculpture by the British artist Thomas J. Price that presents a portrait of a young Black woman with the reverence typically reserved for figures from history, challenging the underrepresentation of Black people in art history.
In Dominican-born artist Firelei Bez’s painting Black Counter Gravity (2022), a band of mermaids swim atop a historical map of the Atlantic Ocean during the transatlantic slave trade. Inpsired by histories of Detroit Techno music, Bez’s painting highlights art’s power to reshape the past and future.
Contemporary Art Galleries Renamed Frances and Kenneth Eisenberg and Family Wing
The contemporary art galleries will be named the Frances and Kenneth Eisenberg and Family Wing in recognition of the generous support of Kenneth and the late Frances Eisenberg, DIA members since 1981 and among the museum’s most devoted supporters for more than four decades. Their substantial gift directly supports the newly reimagined contemporary art galleries, reflecting the Eisenberg family's investment in the museum's future and its presentation of modern and contemporary art to the public for generations to come.
Additionally, both the modern and contemporary art galleries will include works recently donated to the DIA by the estate of Gilbert B. and Lila Silverman, visionary collectors with a deep commitment to the DIA and the City of Detroit, part of a substantial gift given earlier this year.
