Tiff Massey brings ‘7 Mile + Livernois’ to the DIA in new exhibit

Tiff Massey recently experienced a full circle moment. 

While filming an Instagram reel, the Detroit artist embodied her childhood, donning her mother’s long, fur coat and driving around the city in a Cadillac Seville similar to what her father used to drive. 

Location played an important role in the video, too. Massey leans back on the hood of the vintage car parked in the intersection of Seven Mile and Livernois, near the area where Massey’s parents raised her and helped her grow into the woman she is today. 

“My dad had an ‘82 Seville,” she said. “I used to sit on the armrest before they had the laws where you had to get strapped up in the seat, and me and my dad used to ride down Livernois. My dad was the first person that everybody knew who had a car phone in the armrests. 

“It’s the stunt. It’s the flex. It’s really that Black opulence,” Massey added about the direction of the video, which also depicts the artist pulling the Seville up to the front entrance of the Detroit Institute of Arts. 

Massey’s latest exhibit – appropriately titled “7 Mile + Livernois” – opens Sunday at the Midtown cultural institution. The museum is hosting a member sneak preview Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and opening reception from 7-10 p.m. featuring a performance by Detroit DJ and singer Rimarkable. 

Massey specializes in metalsmithing–the process of creating jewelry through the manipulation of various metals. And her position in the craft is rare. When Massey graduated from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2011, she became the first Black woman to receive a master’s degree in metalsmithing from the college. 

Besides jewelry, Massey’s mediums include sculpture, immersive art and music and they have taken her around the world. She was a 2015 Kresge Artists Fellowship recipient, a 2021 United States Artist Fellowship recipient and has shown her work in places like South Africa, Belgium and Australia.

At 42, Massey is the youngest artist to have an exhibition at the DIA and this is the first time in several years that the museum has commissioned an artist to create works specifically for the DIA, said Katie Pfohl, the associate curator of contemporary art, noted at a press preview Wednesday. 

The exhibit consists of nine works from Massey, including four new pieces, as well as two pieces from artists Donald Judd and Louise Nevelson, who have been part of the DIA’s collection since the 1960s, said Pfohl. While both works are made by artists from New York, many of the themes connect to Detroit histories, she said. Judd worked with industrial materials and processes that resonate with Detroit’s history of industry while Nevelson often worked with materials discarded from factories in New York City. 

DIA admission is free for residents of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties and the exhibit will remain on display until May 2025. 

DIA Director Salvador Salort-Pons said during the press event that Detroit is known for innovation and pride for ideas and Massey represents that at the highest level. 

“I can say without hesitation, that there is no other place I would rather see the show than at the DIA,” he said. “This exhibition is going to renew art and inspire.” 

Pfohl told BridgeDetroit the museum was looking for an opportunity to showcase work from a local artist. Massey’s international acclaim stood out, but she had no large shows in Detroit. The artist has had previous exhibitions at the Muskegon Museum of Art, Red Bull Arts Detroit and Library Street Collective. 

“She makes these incredible large-scale metal sculptures. So, part of the show was commissioning her to make a series of pieces for the museum and dialogue with the collection,” Pfohl said. “It was exciting for us to work with someone who has this incredible background in metalsmithing. And, the other piece of it was really the way that she dedicated herself to the city and to shaping the community and the work that she’s done in the Seven Mile and Livernois neighborhood.” 

For Massey, it still hasn’t registered that she’s opening an exhibit at the DIA, which is one of the most popular cultural attractions in the city and named the country’s best art museum for two consecutive years. Her sculptures in the show celebrate Detroit’s style and culture, she said. 

“People need to understand that there’s a lot of sauce here in the soil of Detroit, regardless of what branding or narration Detroit has,” Massey said. “There’s a lot of talent and it only made sense for me to talk about my origin and where I’m from. Yo, if I have this highest platform, I’m gonna represent and then what I’m gonna represent is home because this is what made me and this is exactly why I’m here.” 

You can take the girl off Seven Mile and Livernois…

Art wasn’t always the game plan for the Detroiter. While attending Eastern Michigan University in the early 2000s, Massey studied biology and chemistry, eventually obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree. In between science classes, she said she took metalsmithing classes to break up the monotony of learning formulas and the origins of different species.

“This was a new studio, they had a lot of different tooling and access to new processes,” Massey said. “And so, that’s all she wrote really.”

After college, Massey stayed in the science field, taking a job “mixing chemicals” inside a chemistry lab at Washtenaw Community College. But after a year, she left and later enrolled in the metalsmithing program at Cranbrook.  

While Massey has traveled around the world with her art, her heart belongs to Detroit and she has no plans to move out of the Motor City. 

“Everybody keeps asking me, ‘Why am I here?’ And it’s like, dude, we have all the infrastructure to build cars, we have all of the infrastructure to build the artwork that I could ever imagine,” she said. “We’ve been the sauce and everybody’s just catching up right now.” 

Massey is honored that after traveling internationally, the DIA is giving her a chance to display her work in her hometown. Massey said she mainly wants to draw out guests who don’t normally visit art exhibitions. 

“I want the people where art is not part of their conversation or lexicon to come to the DIA because they’re like, ‘Yo, I see Seven Mile and Livernois. That may be me,’” Massey said. “It’s like, ‘Yes, that’s you. You know your auntie was from there. What’s going on?’” 

Marsha Philpot, a Detroit artist, writer, cultural historian and DIA board member, also recognizes the celebration of Black culture in the exhibit. During the press event, she said that “7 Mile + Livernois” represents the push of Black Detroit after the bounds of segregation were broken. 

Philpot added that the newer generations of Detroiters have been looked down upon and have been through the city’s worst years, such as its bankruptcy. But creatives have been able to preserve by creating art and music. 

“And in the case of Tiff, creating an entire articulation of the grandeur, the sheer magnificence of Detroit itself and for that, she is to be lauded,” Philpot said. 

“She celebrates an adornment that is very particular to the African American experience. The love of stuff,” she said, laughing. 

Sky’s the limit 

Outside of the DIA exhibit, Massey is in the process of opening an art center near the Avenue of Fashion. She expects the opening will be a few years off, but Massey said she envisions the building having metalsmithing, glass making and ceramics studios for kids and adults. 

“I have quite a few friends and people that I know or even other artists who want to learn other mediums. Maybe it’s something that they’ve been thinking about for a long time and just don’t have access to a studio,” she said. “I know that I’m rare as hell in my position as a Black woman into a metalsmith on Seven Mile. And so, how can I use my platform to build a larger table for other people to eat?” 

Massey said she’s constantly working on herself and her craft, trying to become a better version of herself, a better version of the artist she’s become. 

“What’s the next idea? The next sculpture? Is it even a sculpture? Maybe it’s a song, I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t like to put limitations on myself.”