Artist trading cards are miniature works of art, created on 2½ x 3½-inch card stock. Celebrate your favorites by making your own cards to trade with friends. No experience required. All supplies provided.

Fashioned around 1695 and attributed to Gottfried Wolffram, the DIA’s amber casket exemplifies the early modern practice of using materials from formerly living organisms and the inorganic materials whose extraction adversely affected the environment. Comprising amber, ivory, wood, velvet, paper, gold, and brass, the casket's diverse materials not only showcase artistic versatility but also hint at environmental impacts in regions like Prussia, Lithuania, Sweden, East Africa, and the Americas. 

Contrasting sharply with our contemporary, often limited grasp of the origins, processing, and assembly of materials, early modern craftspeople and the European elites had a far deeper understanding of artifacts’ structural logic and their constituent materials. This tacit knowledge, increasingly recognized as “material literacy,” profoundly shaped the interpretation and appreciation of art. With this backdrop, Dr. Tomasz Grusiecki will investigate how early modern Europeans understood the materials that make up the DIA’s casket. He will examine the range of responses elicited by the scarcity, abundance, and ecological implications of various artistic media. Investigating the materials’ relationship to the natural world, as well as their extraction, refinement, and recycling, this lecture will provide insights into how environmental concerns of the period endowed art with added meaning and value. 

About the lecturer: Dr. Tomasz Grusiecki is Associate Professor of Early Modern European Art and Material Cultures at Boise State University. His research encompasses early modern cultural entanglements, European perceptions of the wider world, eco-critical examinations of artistic materials, and zoopolitics of art-making, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe from 1500 to 1700. He is the author of Transcultural Things and the Spectre of Orientalism in Early Modern Poland-Lithuania (Manchester University Press, 2023). 

 
Photo: Courtly amber casket, ca. 1695, attributed to Gottfried Wolffram. Collection: Detroit Institute of Arts, Museum Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund.

Chinese Pipa Master Gao Hong and Syrian oudist Issam Rafea perform music from their 2020 album “From Our World to Yours,” which has received two Gold Medals in from the Global Music Awards. Hong and Rafea are both prolific composers and improvisers.

This collaboration brings sounds from ancient Asian dynasties and the Middle East to present music of great charm and elegance.

Kayla Powers is a place-based fiber artist and naturalist living and working in Detroit. In this drop-in style workshop, participants will learn about the process of extracting pigment from plants and how make paint using a natural binder. Participants will then use those paints to add to a collaborative community painting that will later be displayed.

Kayla Powers creates ecologically focused textile art to explore the common threads of our shared humanity. Years of gardening and city living have given rise to her unique approach to foraging for plants in an urban environment. Kayla holds a BA in Art History from Western Michigan University and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art.

This program is made possible by the PNC Foundation.

Since her debut while still a graduate student at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music, pianist Aki Takahashi has been at the center of new music performances at venues around the world. Well known for her classical musicianship, Takahashi is also lauded for her interpretations of contemporary works by composers such as John Cage, Isang Yun, and her brother Yuji Takahashi.

Her series of Erik Satie concerts in Tokyo during the 1970s triggered a Satie boom throughout Japan, and in 1980 she began a collaboration with American composer Morton Feldman that produced multiple landmark recordings. 

Use a variety of drawing and collage materials as well as stamps and stencils to design and make your own movie poster. Create something new for your favorite film, or invent a new movie!

Create a pencil drawing to take home while taking a closer look at the collection. No experience necessary. All supplies provided. For ages 6 and up (children ages 12 and younger should be accompanied by an adult).

The Detroit Institute of Arts invites you to join us for the inaugural Byron and Dorothy Gerson Lecture Series, in partnership with the William Davidson Foundation. Franklin Sirmans, director of the Perez Art Museum Miami will present on the topic; A View from the Crossroads: A 21st Century American Museum.

This talk will explore the recent history of the Pérez Art Museum Miami. Working with modern and contemporary art, the museum has sought to be a leader in presenting the work of Latin America and the Caribbean while highlighting African diasporic and US Latino art. This talk will present artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Marisol, Warhol, Leandro Erlich and exhibitions like NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith and Futbol: The Beautiful Game.

The Teen Arts Council invites teens ages 15-19, to join us for a special event inspired by Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898 – 1971. After exploring the exhibition and engaging in a group discussion, participants will design and paint a custom tote bag that reflects messages of perseverance, resilience, and empowerment. Complimentary meal with registration. All supplies provided. 

Exhibition Overview

Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898 – 1971 explores the history of African American filmmakers and actors from the dawn of cinema through the Civil Rights movement. The exhibition celebrates the innovations of filmmakers and actors despite challenges of racism, revealing their tenacity, talent, and commitment to creative expression.

Students and teachers will see photographs, costumes, props, and film clips, along with works by contemporary artists who respond to this history. 

Content Advisory

To tell a complete story of the racism Black people encountered, the exhibition includes a small selection of racist memorabilia from early 20th-century film history. This material is in several galleries, and includes but is not limited to: 

• a Birth of a Nation (1915) movie poster showing a Ku Klux Klan figure
• a few instances of Black actors performing in blackface
• a contemporary artwork by artist Kara Walker, who confronts the stereotypes and sexual violence in the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) and its later film adaptations.

These artworks and films are intended to demonstrate the obstacles Black people faced, and caricatural representations of them. The majority of this exhibition counters this history, with images and stories of Black stars, filmmakers, and artists who challenged racism through their artistry and creativity. 

For more information and resources related to this content, please find a learning resource here.

The Nicholas Brothers in a scene from Stormy Weather (1943), from left, Fayard Nicholas and Harold Nicholas. Photographic print, gelatin silver. Courtesy Margaret Herrick Library. ©Twentieth Century Fox.
 

Brad Felt was a tuba and euphonium player, composer, educator and a mainstay on the Detroit Jazz scene in the 1980s and 1990s before his death in 2011. Saxophonist/ flutist Steve Wood has assembled a band featuring Terry Kimura on trombone, Duncan McMillan on organ and Dave Zwolinski on drums. The results are a fitting tribute and an opportunity to hear the music of a Detroit Jazz original.