For more than a century the Detroit Institute for the Arts (DIA) has been considered one of the crown jewels of the city and state of Michigan. With its more than 100 galleries of art with exhibits from artists as renowned as Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, Salvador Dali, John James Audubon, Georgia O’Keefe, Andrew Wyeth, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Jacob Lawrence and more, the Woodward Avenue landmark is a tourism magnet for people from around the world.
The museum’s art collection has been valued at more than $8 billion.
And yet, for almost as long as it has been in existence there have been persistent rumblings that the DIA has underserved Detroit’s large Black community and has often been a hostile workplace environment for its Black employees.
Despite its public-facing efforts at outreach and inclusion, complaints that it does not include the Black community in enough of its programming, low levels of sponsorship of Black artists as well as chronic undervaluation and mistreatment of its Black staff and others have grown louder over the years. It reached a crescendo recently after a group of about 20 former and current staff members calling themselves DIA Staff Action took to social media promoting the hashtag #DecolonizeDIA with an online petition and a list of reforms it says are needed at the museum.
The petition, launched on the website Change.org, claims among other things that the DIA has a hostile work environment where staff, especially Blacks, other people of color and women are unable to thrive. And its “public commitment to diversity and inclusion, does not match the actions within the organization where these initiatives and programs are under-funded and disregarded as essential museum work.”
It also charged the DIA with having poor labor conditions and accuses its leadership of a lack of staff support during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The petition notes the group seeks “the transformation of labor conditions, addressing classist, sexist, colonist practices that will result in a more equitable, inclusive and kinder work environment,” and called for the removal of Salvador Salort-Pons from the position as director, president and chief executive officer and an independent investigation into the alleged misconduct and potential abuse of power by Salort-Pons and Eugene Gargaro Jr., chairman of the board.
Salort-Pons has also come under fire for hanging his wealthy in-law’s El Greco in the museum in violation of DIA conflict-of-interest rules to prevent self-dealing.
The larger issue, however, is the concerns raised by DIA Staff Action is his autocratic management style coupled with a lack of cultural competency in dealing with Black and other people of color. His critics argue it has badly eroded morale and once again made the museum’s leadership treatment of race a source of contention after years of aggressive community outreach. This at precisely the time when questions about institutional racism are gaining new currency and urgency in cultural institutions around the country.
A July New York Times story noted that Andrea Montiel de Shuman, a former digital experience designer, quit and complained in an online essay of “a contradictory, hostile, at times vicious and chaotic work environment” that censors the work of people of color and neglects Black communities.
And the story reported two Black assistant curators, who were hired for the contemporary art department in 2016 as part of an effort to expand diversity, left within two years.
One of the curators, Taylor Renee Aldridge, said in an email to the Times that her situation “is emblematic of many cases of abuse and systemic violence that permeates from the top down in museums, and especially the DIA.”
But Salort-Pons has his defenders. Detroit cultural critic and author Marsha Philpot, known locally as Marsha Music, expressed her support for him in a widely read social media post noting his outreach efforts included everything from the screening of an Aretha Franklin documentary and a panel discussion at the DIA honoring three elder veterans of the arts in Detroit, all of whom were over 80-years-old, Dell Pryor, Dr. Cledie Taylor and Shirley Woodson.
“It was standing room only in the Kresge Court. These women have been running galleries in Detroit for decades and the three of them had never been acknowledged in this way by the DIA,” Music said. “It is the staff people with whom we met who put together an event like that. However, as head of their organization Salort-Pons greenlighted this. It sends a very powerful message about acknowledgment of Detroit’s African American majority and its long-time arts legacy.”
Under Salort-Pons the DIA even had a special weekend event celebrating African American hair by a well-known hair artisan. “Can you imagine that? An event celebrating Black hair at the DIA,” she said with a laugh.
“My defense of Mr. Salort-Pons was not aimed against those who have labor issues,” Music told the Chronicle. “It was not my wish to be pitted against activists who have expressed concerns about their work environment. I desired to highlight the fact the NYT story about this controversy had completely ignored those of us in the community who have been the recipients of support by the DIA and Mr. Salort-Pons and the significant work that is going on.”
Hubert Massey, a current nine-year-member of the DIA Board of Trustees agreed with Marsha Music. He praised Salort-Pons for his outreach to Detroit’s Black community and for making the DIA more accessible to a greater swath of Detroiters than any director who preceded him.
“Of all of our directors of the museum, Salvador is probably the person that stands out in my mind as the person who more than any other innovates as far as bringing communities into the DIA,” he said. “I’ve never seen a museum director come to the community, break bread and celebrate local artists like he did … and all the other things he was doing.”
Both Massey and Marsha Music specifically mentioned Salort-Pons’ involvement with the Detroit Fine Arts Breakfast Club, a Detroit art enthusiast group that supports the fine arts in the Detroit area. It is a group of community artists who meet weekly at a local Coney Island to share art, sell art, raffle art, get educated about art, announce openings and other art events, and even perform art.
Salort-Pons and his wife are active members of the group. Massey said he could not speak on the handling of personnel issues at the museum, however, he rejected criticism that Salort-Pons has been insensitive and non-accommodating to the creative and cultural interests of Black Detroiters.
“He has made strides to bridge the gap to bring the DIA closer to the community environment for the people of Detroit,” Massey said. “He sees the value in having and including people of this community within the DIA.”
Salort-Pons said he was proud of the museum’s support within Detroit’s artistic community and relied on their advice in crafting the DIA’s outreach efforts.
“The Detroit artistic community continues to be very supportive of the work the DIA is doing,” he said. “What is crucial is the fact I rely on their feedback and advice and ideas on how to learn more of what they are doing and to broaden and deepen our engagements within the neighborhoods.”
Salort-Pons acknowledged while the DIA under his leadership has been making progress in becoming more inclusive and diversifying its operations across all departments, including offering paid internships to increase access to the museum field, it still has room for improvement.
“When I became director in 2015, we made a commitment to diversify our board to really reflect the diversity of our tri-counties,” he said. “We have been diversifying our staff and I think we have been successful in diversifying our junior staff and must do better with our senior staff and other areas.”
“We really want to transform the culture of the organization and make sure that in our future work, inclusion, diversity, equity and access is expressed and portrayed in all activities, and we have engaged The Kaleidoscope Group to lead our work in developing that roadmap,” Salort-Pons said. “That includes internal work, exhibitions and permeates all the way to our governance.”