For more than 25 years, Olayami Dabls has invited Detroiters into his world of African art, jewelry and colorful outdoor installations through the Dabls Mbad African Bead Museum on the city’s west side.
So, the 77-year-old artist was surprised when the co-directors of the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD), Jova Lynne and Marie Madison-Patton, contacted him a year ago to ask if he wanted to showcase his work in their space.
“Jova would come by and look at the exhibits, but never said anything to me about someday doing A, B, C or D,” Dabls told BridgeDetroit. “It’s gonna be hard to come down from this excitement.”
The result is the exhibition, “Olayami Dabls: Detroit Cosmologies,” which runs until July 12. The display is the first comprehensive retrospective of Dabls’ career, spanning 45 years and featuring his paintings, sculptures, installations, archival materials and public works. “Detroit Cosmologies” was one of four exhibits MOCAD debuted when it reopened in April after an eight-month renovation project. The others are “This Side of The River,” the first comprehensive museum exhibition dedicated to Detroit-based fiber artist Carole Harris; artist and educator Martha Mysko’s first solo museum exhibition, “Retail Therapy;” and French artist Loris Gréaud’s exhibit, “Cortical: Smoke+Mirrors.”
“Smoke+Mirrors” closed on June 14, while “This Side of the River” and “Retail Therapy” will be on display until Sunday.
The offerings at MOCAD are part of a full slate of shows at Detroit’s cultural institutions this summer, such as the 60th anniversary exhibit, “Luminosity” at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the Detroit Historical Museum’s latest exhibit, “The Amplification Project: Women Artists of The Arab Diaspora.”
In an email to BridgeDetroit, Lynne said Dabls, Harris and Mysko were the right artists to kick off MOCAD’s new chapter because they represent a distinct part of Detroit’s cultural and artistic landscape.
“At a moment when we were thinking carefully about what it meant to reopen — not just physically, but symbolically — we wanted to foreground artists whose practices embody experimentation, rigor, care and a deep commitment to community and cultural memory,” she said.
The museum’s large renovation project included installing a new HVAC system, front-facing windows and a new roof.
MOCAD also introduced new community-centered spaces, including the Learning Studio geared toward younger visitors and students, and the Knight Community Commons, a gathering space where people can host lectures, performances, meetings and informal gatherings, Lynne said.
When it comes to Dabls’ exhibit, she added that the artist is a “foundational force in Detroit’s cultural history.”
“His work has shaped the visual and spiritual landscape of the city for decades, and honoring his practice was also a way of acknowledging the generations of Black artists and cultural workers who built creative ecosystems here long before institutions fully recognized them,” Lynne said.
‘A part of Detroit’s cultural and artistic landscape’
“Detroit Cosmologies” showcases works from Dabls’ early days as an artist, such as “Feeling,” a collage from 1985 that features two men and two women sitting on a bench against a gray backdrop. The piece was made for the Wright Museum when Dabls was serving as its first curator and artist-in-residence, according to MOCAD. The exhibition also includes installations dangling with beads Dabls has collected over the years and murals done in his signature style of intricate patterns, bright colors and sprinkles of broken glass.
Dabls said his work, which often consists of pieces made of iron, wood, rocks and mirrors, is a metaphor for the differences between African and European art over the past 500 years.
“I got that concept from studying the history of my (African) people,” he said. “They use metaphors to solve very serious differences between two people, because when you use a metaphor, you’re removing this disagreement from two people. You’re moving into an arena where you can talk about it without involving the people actually involved. And that’s the way this exhibit has been presented.”
Meanwhile, Lynne said Harris’ exhibit “engages materiality, abstraction, and process with such sensitivity and depth.”
“Her practice invites viewers into a space of contemplation and emotional resonance, offering a quiet but powerful meditation on memory, transformation, and form,” she said.
Harris told BridgeDetroit that “This Side of The River,” explores Black people’s history with the Detroit River and Windsor through abstract art and quilting.
“It (the river) was once a destination on the Underground Railroad, as travelers were on their way to Canada,” she said. “They had to come through Detroit on the way to Canada, so in essence, Detroit was kind of the destination as well. I often do work about the city, and this was just another way of addressing that.”
Family and music are also themes in the exhibit and Harris’ overall body of work, which goes back to the 1970s. Her first solo exhibition took place in 1977 at Gallery 7, a former Detroit art space dedicated to Black artists that was founded by acclaimed artist Charles McGee.
One of the pieces in the exhibit is , “Playing on the Edge,” which features a large piece of black fabric surrounded by quilted squares of multicolored patterns.
Harris said she hopes museum visitors leave with a new appreciation for fiber art as well as the works of Dabls and Mysko.
“MOCAD is a very special place,” she said. “MOCAD is one of several institutions that I’m exhibiting in this year, but it’s probably the most significant because it’s in my hometown and I have not had a show of this magnitude and the scope here in the city. I was very pleased and honored that they asked me.”
Celebrating 60 years of history
At the Wright Museum, “Luminosity,” is still on display. The exhibit opened last year for the institution’s 60th anniversary and runs until July 19. Spanning painting, sculpture, photography and more, “Luminosity” consists of more than 60 artworks from present-day and late Detroit artists, as well as works from the museum’s archive.
For the exhibition, the Wright Museum worked with Vera Ingrid Grant, an Ann Arbor-based curator who has produced several national and international exhibitions, said Lance Wheeler, the Wright’s vice president of learning and engagement.
The museum put out a call for artists and then Grant and Jennifer Evans, the vice president of exhibitions and collections, selected the 30-plus artists who are in the show, he said. Some of those include Terrell Anglin, Sydney James, Elonte Davis, and Jonathan Harris, as well as late artists like Harold Neal and Glanton Dowdell.
Wheeler said it was important to honor Detroit artists who have passed because with the living artists showcasing art regarding the present and the future, the museum couldn’t forget about the artists of the past.
“Mentioning those artists who were icons and legacy artists…helps to build a foundation, and so, it’s always important to remember what direction we’re going into the future,” he said. “We have individuals who paved the way for young artists, but also just Black culture as a whole, and that’s why they’re incorporated in this exhibition.”
Also on display is “The Bias Inside Us” which runs until July 12. The exhibition and community engagement project is from the Smithsonian’s Traveling Exhibition Service and explores the social science, psychology and consequences of implicit bias.
The exhibition is interactive, Wheeler said, featuring scenarios where visitors have to make certain decisions and deal with the consequences.
“We all know that bias is a human trait and we all have it, but it’s really not the first thought that you have; it’s the second decision that dictates what those biases are,” he said. “This exhibition helps us first to recognize the influence and impact on our own behavior, and then it also challenges us to play an active role in how we show up in the world.”
To accompany the exhibit, the Wright Museum will host an event from 11 a.m. to1 p.m. on June 27 titled “Bias in health: Race, access and care.” Audiences will consider how race, socioeconomic status and systemic structures influence who receives care, how care is delivered and the quality of that care through guided discussions and reflective engagement, according to the Wright Museum’s website.
Credit: Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History
Highlighting Arab women artists
Meanwhile, the Detroit Historical Museum recently opened its latest exhibit, “The Amplification Project: Women Artists of the Arab Diaspora,” which focuses on migration, inheritance and life among different cultural geographies from Arab women artists connected to Michigan.
Running until Sept. 13, the display is a collaboration between the museum and The Amplification Project, a worldwide digital archive documenting art, photography, literature and other forms of media shaped by forced migration, displacement and cultural survival.
“It allows artists who are involved in refugeehood to preserve their artworks, to have their own archive, to have a legacy,” said project co-founder Biba Sheikh.
“Women Artists of the Arab Diaspora” features several artists, such as Leila Abdelrazaq, Malak Cherri, Ibaa Ismail, Razaan Killawi and Marguerite Dabaie.
“She (Marguerite Dabaie) has a series of illustrations and comics talking about generational trauma, growing up in a place that you don’t belong and can never belong and feeling like you only could belong to Palestine,” she said. “It’s very smart.”
In addition to comics, the exhibit features an array of mixed media, like paintings, installations, film, poetry and recorded narration inspired by hakawati, a centuries-old tradition of Arabic oral storytelling, according to the museum website.
Sheikh wants museum visitors to know that women of the Arab diaspora are people just like everyone else.
“I want to create events and exhibitions that people remember for the rest of their life,” she said. “I hope that they will delve into it in a way that’s not touristic, not just like a person walking through the rooms of a hotel, but really reading the texts and trying to decipher what the exhibition is about.”