‘A family reunion of artists’: Minnesota Anishinaabe artists showcased in Detroit and beyond
Go Deeper.
Create an account or log in to save stories.
Like this?
Thanks for liking this story! We have added it to a list of your favorite stories.
A museum in Detroit, Mich., is featuring the work of more than 15 Minnesota Anishinaabe artists.
Minnesota artist Andrea Carlson likens it to a giant family reunion.
“It’s such a small world in the art world, and then when it’s the Anishinaabe art world, it’s even smaller,” Carlson says.
For the first time in 30 years, the Detroit Institute of the Arts is hosting a major Native American art exhibition featuring more than 90 artworks by more than 60 artists. “Contemporary Anishinaabe Art: A Continuation” includes paintings, jewelry, textiles and fashion, film, sculpture and traditional crafts. It is on view through April 5, 2026.
Turn Up Your Support
MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all.
Curator Denene De Quintal tells MPR News that DIA has never had a show like it.
“Not on this scale, and not with so many contemporary artists,” De Quintal says. All 12 of the federally recognized tribes in Michigan are Anishinaabe. “We wanted to show the depth and the breadth of Anishinaabe artistry.”
A deep Minnesota contingent
De Quintal brought in Anishinaabe artists from across the Great Lakes region. In addition to Carlson, contemporary artists from Minnesota include Gordon M. Coons and Frank Big Bear of Minneapolis; Moira Villiard and Michelle Defoe of Duluth; Gerald White of Deer River; Pat Kruse of Onamia and Delina White of Walker.
The show also features the work of two late Minnesota artists — Jim Denomie, who died in 2022, and George Morrison, who died in 2000. (There is also a solo exhibition of Morrison currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.)
“There’s quite a large contingency. It's only surpassed by the amount of Michigan artists in the show,” De Quintal says.
De Quintal also brought in Jonathan Thunder of Duluth as one of five Anishinaabe artist advisers. A 2024 painting by Thunder, “Basil’s Dream,” became the promotional image for the exhibition.
The large piece, painted in a rose monotone, features a billiard game between Thunderbird and Mishibizhiw, two figures in Anishinaabe mythology.
Thunder has a studio in Duluth.
“They are joined by a DJ wearing bandolier bags. The DJ also sports an otter-fur hat, which reminds me of one of my favorite artists, Humpty Hump or Shock G,” Thunder said in an artist statement. “The Anishinaabe writer and storyteller Basil Johnston sits peacefully in the corner with his typewriter. His books have made Ojibwe stories accessible to many, including myself, throughout my life.”
De Quintal says she chose it because of the way Thunder mixes traditional and contemporary aspects of Anishinaabe culture with cultural influences like hip hop, heavy metal and Disney.
“There’s different images within that particular painting that hits home to multiple demographics, and that’s something that we really wanted to tap into.”
Many voices, shared roots
Textile artist Maggie Thompson of Minneapolis says the exhibition shows the “huge diversity of Ojibwe artists within the region.” Thompson said seeing the work of Denomie, Kruse and others in the same space felt familiar.
“Like you’re walking amongst family members,” says Thompson, who also currently has a solo exhibition at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe.
Carlson, a mixed-media artist based on the North Shore, says the exhibition is important because it shows how Native nations go beyond state or national boundaries.
“These lines that have been drawn across our land aren't necessarily real. They're constructed, made-up boundaries. A lot of these artists are from Canada and Michigan and Wisconsin, because our nation is so much larger than those states and geographies. It’s kind of neat to see this almost family reunion of artists.”
Carlson, whose work has appeared in the Smithsonian and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, also currently has her first major museum survey, “Andrea Carlson: A Constant Sky,” at the Denver Art Museum through Feb. 16.
“There hasn't been any comprehensive shows of my work that have had such a long span of my career all in one place,” Carlson says. “I've never seen this much of my work in one place, so it's pretty exciting.”
