The Salonnière team (l to r): Danielle Waddell, Erica Jackson, Julie Egan, Juana Williams, and Andi Harris at the organization’s headquarters in Detroit during a private cocktail event in July 2025. Photo by Bre’Ann White.
Detroit will introduce a new, city-built contemporary art platform with global partners and a long runway for local artists. Detroit Salon, created by Detroit-based Salonnière and backed by the State of Michigan, Visit Detroit, CultureSource and others, will debut internationally in Paris in fall 2025, open a community-driven artist call in January 2026, and stage a full citywide edition in Detroit in 2028. The headquarters will be the Detroit Salon Art House in Paradise Valley, where year-round exhibitions, salons and artist development are planned. After 2028, the fair is intended to recur every two years.
The initiative enters a city with a deep and resilient visual arts tradition. Detroit’s art history runs from the Detroit Institute of Arts’ Rivera Court murals — Diego Rivera’s 1930s homage to the city’s industrial workers — to the 1980s rise of Tyree Guyton’s Heidelberg Project on the East Side and Olayami Dabls’ African Bead Museum on the West. The city’s designation as the only U.S. UNESCO City of Design underscores that creative lineage. Today, artists such as Tiff Massey, Sheefy McFly, Darius Baber, Sydney G. James, and Oshun Williams are pushing Detroit’s visual identity forward from massive public murals and sculpture to digital installations and fashion design — making the city’s scene one of the most robust in the country.
Salonnière Art Salon honoring Detroit artist Adnan Charara at the Harmonie Club in Paradise Valley. Image by Emily Berger.
Organizers describe Detroit Salon as both a global exhibitions platform and a Detroit-rooted infrastructure play. Partnerships include Art Basel and 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair. The plan is to connect Detroit artists to audiences in Paris, Basel and London while building a home base that elevates neighborhood voices and institutions across the city.
“The first thing for us is relationships,” said Artistic Director and Chief Curator Juana Williams, a Detroiter whose career has focused on connecting artists and audiences. “We are taking artists into international rooms so they can build the networks that sustain careers. We are also curating with a Detroit committee and speaking directly with artists through an advisory group that started at 11 members and will keep growing.”
Williams said two of the Paris shows are being assembled through nominations from dozens of Michigan arts leaders and a juried review, while a third will be curated by her team. “There has always been a strong arts and culture scene here,” she said. “We talk a lot about music and design. Visual art needs to be part of that global conversation, and Detroit artists need the access that comes with it.”
CultureSource Executive Director Omari Rush, a community partner for the initiative, framed the timing as alignment with Detroit’s longstanding creative engine. “Detroit has started industrial, social, artistic and labor movements from the ground up,” Rush said. “This gives visibility to that characteristic and more air to the work happening at smaller scales alongside major institutions.” He added that he hopes the experience accelerates artists’ momentum and business capacity. “As artists interact with new audiences and buyers, it helps them calibrate as entrepreneurs, how they present, price and position their work.”
Visit Detroit President and CEO Claude Molinari said the effort meets a tourism and jobs mandate as well as a cultural one. “Detroit is known for cars, culture, music and design. We are not yet on the map for our art scene the way we should be,” Molinari said. “Detroit Salon is a platform to elevate the city on a world stage. If it is successful and we intend it to be, the world will take notice. That means visitors in hotels, people in restaurants and attractions, and well-paying jobs for Southeast Michigan residents who work the event.”
Founder Julie Egan said the team pursued lengthy negotiations to ensure Detroit control across creative decisions and storytelling. “Our exhibitions are curated by a Detroit curator. Our selection and committee processes include curators and cultural workers from institutions across Michigan. And when our partners tell Detroit’s story across their channels, that work is done by Detroit or Michigan writers, photographers and videographers,” Egan said. “We wanted global reach without losing Detroit’s voice.”
Egan confirmed a three-year global partnership with Art Basel that places Detroit activations inside multiple fairs beginning in Paris. She also cited collaboration with 1-54, the leading fair for contemporary African art, and plans for an exhibition during the Venice Biennial period in 2028. “The goal is clear,” she said. “We want our partners’ networks talking about Detroit while Detroit artists and institutions shape the narrative.”
The 2028 Detroit edition is planned as a citywide presentation that uses museums, galleries, neighborhoods and public spaces. Organizers said success will be measured by artist opportunities, institutional traffic and a durable pipeline for cultural tourism and investment. “We want people who may not have otherwise visited to come here for the visual arts,” Egan said. “We are creating a platform, but the point is to drive new audiences to our museums, our galleries, our studios and our collectors. A rising tide.”
For Detroit artists, Williams points to the practical benefits of traveling together and working across disciplines and generations. “Last year, when a small group went to Paris, the conversations we had as a cohort could not have happened at home. Working this way strengthens the ecosystem,” she said. “Artists will meet people they would not have met otherwise, learn from different audiences, and bring that learning back into their practice.”
Rush underscored Detroit’s standing among cultural capitals. “There are source communities where culture starts,” he said. “Detroit belongs alongside places like New Orleans and Paris because of the forms and styles that started here, Motown, techno, mid-century and automotive design. This initiative invites the rest of the world to engage with that reality.”
Molinari called the 2028 fair a validator for the region. “It says that beyond music, sports and mobility, this is also a place for contemporary art,” he said. “We believe once people come, perceptions change. And when perceptions change, investment follows.”
Key dates are set. The first international stop is Paris in fall 2025. The open call for artists begins January 2026. Detroit hosts the inaugural citywide edition in fall 2028. Between those markers, Detroit Salon plans exhibitions with its global partners and steady programming from Paradise Valley.
That neighborhood itself carries deep symbolism. Once the commercial and entertainment heart of Black Bottom, Paradise Valley was home to hundreds of Black-owned businesses and venues during segregation. Re-anchoring an international art house there ties the project directly to Detroit’s legacy of Black entrepreneurship and creative self-determination.
Egan summarized the longer horizon. “We are claiming our place on the global art world calendar in 2028 and every two years after,” she said. “The work between now and then is to keep doors open for Detroit artists, protect the integrity of Detroit storytelling, and invite the world to see what this community makes.”
