NYTimes looks at how the DIA rejuvenated itself from within

The Detroit Institute of Art has one of the greatest art collections in the nation. And though it gets little support from Michigan and Detroit government, it has renewed itself by taking a look at what it had and reworking it.

Excerpt:

Comparable largess is all but nonexistent in Detroit today. Wealthy industrialists have faded from the scene. The Michigan state government gives almost no money to the institute, the city even less. In 1997 Detroit built the Museum of African-American History across the street from the institute, its spanking newness in sharp contrast to its older, crumbling neighbor.

Graham W. J. Beal, who arrived as director that year, has done much to stop the decline, largely — and this is where other museums should pay attention — through the use of material at hand. In 2007, to attract the city’s black majority and woo back white suburbanites, the museum unveiled a top-to-bottom rethinking of all the permanent galleries, with strategic shifts in emphasis.

The museum’s very fine African collection, developed by the curator Michael Kan, was placed upfront, near a main entrance, where it offers a cool yet absorbing introduction to the institute’s imperious interior. A gallery for African-American art, including Detroit artists, was added upstairs: it’s an important gesture, although something should have been done to make it look commanding rather than dutiful.

Read the entire article here.