An Open Letter to the Current Leadership at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA)
Dear Mr. Salort-Pons, Mr. Gargaro, DIA board members, and DIA senior leadership,
It is with great sadness that I write this letter to the leaders of the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), but I cannot watch what is happening to an institution I have long loved and remain silent any longer. My intention in making it an open letter is not to eviscerate or even to embarrass your institution — I still have hope that in future you will once again become the place I love, and prove yourself worthy of that love. Instead, I make my comments public so that you and members of your community have insight into the impacts your current choices are having, both on the loyalty of long-time supporters and on loss of future bequests — and maybe more will choose to speak out as well.
When I moved to the Detroit area nearly 25 years ago, I quickly fell in love with the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA). It was Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry frescoes that initially caught my attention, along with the modern art galleries and amazing traveling exhibitions. However, it was the work that went on in the 2000s to expand the museum and completely rethink the way art might be made relevant to museum-goers beyond traditional audiences that helped expand the way I thought about art, and museums. Unlike at so many other art museums, it felt OK — and indeed welcomed — at the DIA to appreciate a piece without having an art history degree. It was not stuffy. It was not academic. It understood how to speak to its community. It was a place I felt at home.
As a result, I’ve been a member of the DIA for two decades. I was a passionate supporter throughout the turmoil of Detroit’s bankruptcy, and, as a Wayne County resident, happily voted for both tri-county millages. I was also optimistic about the future of the DIA when Mr. Salort-Pons took over. I was pleased to see an internal candidate, someone from the collections side of the house, chosen to lead the institution. I was able to hear him talk several times early on in his new role, and appreciated the vision he articulated to make the DIA into a true community center. This sounded like a continuation of the efforts I already appreciated to make the DIA welcoming to all.
However, since then, it has become increasingly clear to me that the DIA has been losing, rather than gaining, ground in its efforts to represent a diverse and vibrant community, and has seemed to recede into “traditional” art museum territory — which I doubt works for most residents of the city of Detroit, and certainly does not work for me. While there have been clear efforts to display and share more art from BIPOC artists, and this is laudable, this effort seems at odds with the DIA’s contentious relationship with its own staff, as well as some of its public.
I’m disturbed by the stories that have been shared by former DIA employees, including Andrea Montiel de Shuman’s open resignation letter of last year.
I’m disturbed by the way you have failed to address the concerns of both past and present staff brought up to you by your own advisors, Crowell and Moring. Citing leaked audio of Crowell and Moring’s reporting they shared in a March 11 article, Metro Times wrote:
According to Crowell and Moring attorney Preston Pugh, while fears of retaliation in a workplace are not uncommon, “what we will say is having conducted many investigations ourselves, the extent to which this was pronounced was in a more extreme manner,” he said during the meeting.
The same audio records other findings of concern from Crowell and Moring, including that women have left the DIA at rates far greater than men over recent years, and that “there’s opportunity for more accountability” for Mr. Salort-Pons.
I’m disturbed that seven trustees of the DIA were so distraught over the board’s non-response to all of these things that they resigned in March — and I’m also disturbed that the DIA board chair, Mr. Gargaro, continues to look to “frequent monitoring and reporting on progress” as an adequate response to the crisis the DIA finds itself in.
But the final straw for me was the recent debacle surrounding the public artwork outside the Sterling Heights police station. I try to limit my time on social media for my own well-being, but unfortunately I saw the original tweet (since taken down, but captured in a screenshot by Allie Gross), lauding the new mural at the Sterling Heights Police Station.
A variety of polls show that the perceptions of Black Americans on the topic of policing are complex, and not easily simplified to pithy sound bites. That said, it does seem safe to say that on average, the relationship between Black people and police is much more fraught than that between white people and police. And as an institution located in a city that is 78% Black, in a county that is nearly 39% Black, I was aghast that you would choose to celebrate this mural, without considering how your local community, the citizens who have supported you through your tri-county millages, might see this artwork.
I realize this project was started “years” ago, before the boosts in public consciousness caused by the video of George Floyd’s death. However, this was also not a new phenomenon.
Did you start work on the mural in 2014? That is when Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner were killed by police.
Did you start work on the mural in 2015? That is when Freddie Gray was killed by police.
Did you start work on the mural in 2016? That is when Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were killed by police.
I could go on, and add dozens, if not hundreds, more names to these lists, but I think you take my point — that had you listened to residents of your city or your county at any point in the last decade, maybe longer ago, they would likely have expressed concerns about this mural to you.
I also realize you have an obligation to residents of all three counties who support you through your millages — of course you do. However, I do wonder why the “community” you chose to support was the Sterling Heights… police. Isn’t a police station a public building, intended for use by everyone? Police officers might see it the most often, if they are stationed there, but I question why ordinary citizens who live in Sterling Heights and would have business at the station would not get a say in a new public artwork on a public building in their community, which they have helped fund through the millage. This could have avoided the mural looking like an attempt to rehabilitate the image of police in an era of increased scrutiny.
The DIA Staff Action Instagram account shared what they purport to be an internal e-mail to DIA staff from the DIA’s “strategy group,” including Mr. Salort-Pons, in the wake of the social backlash about the new mural. If this does not accurately reflect your own internal messaging, please correct me. Assuming it’s authentic, I was struck by these lines: “As a leadership team, we know that there were many failures and mistakes in this process. We deeply apologize to all of you, and commit to doing better in the immediate future and moving forward.” This does sound familiar — as a fan and member of your broader community, I feel I’ve heard something similar before. And yet things do not seem to get better.
While it’s laudable to try to improve, a key part of true leadership is recognizing when you are not the right leaders for the time and place in which you find yourselves. I think that time is now, and the place is the DIA. I believe that things will not truly change until Mr. Salort-Pons and Mr. Gargaro no longer lead the DIA.
I have no power to effect such a change, of course. However, I can give you one concrete impact that has resulted from your actions. It is unfortunate for the DIA that the police mural came to my attention just as I was finalizing estate planning changes. I had planned to leave money to the DIA, along with many other worthy nonprofits. Though it grieves me, I cannot now in good conscience do that. I instead reallocated the money I intended for the DIA to the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. I feel the Wright Museum will better use these dollars to support its community than the DIA will — until there are changes in leadership that bring a new dawn and a new day to the DIA.
I have no illusions that this personal decision on my part will make or break the DIA — the amount I had allocated was never going to be millions of dollars, and I therefore was aware my name would never be inscribed on a wall or a gallery, like those who donate truly massive sums. However, my gift would have been five digits — a consequential sum for me and not meaningless, I hope, to the DIA.
As a museum professional myself, I understand how truly complex it is for museums, long bastions celebrating the achievements of white men while downplaying or ignoring the contributions of marginalized groups, to change their collections, to change their perspective, to change their relationships with funders, and to change the way they interact with their communities. Not a week, not a day goes by where I don’t have conversations with colleagues about how we keep ever-so-slowly turning the battleship that is the cultural heritage sector toward diversity, toward equity, and toward justice. It is hard and grueling work. But I believe without a doubt that it is the most important work we must do right now — and that the most effective change comes when ground-level staff are empowered, not constricted, by their leadership.
From my vantage point, this is not happening now at the DIA. I do not see the kind of leadership that is required at this moment and in this place, and your staff, your institution, and your community is suffering for lack of it.
Mr. Salort-Pons, Mr. Gargaro: Please consider my words, and search your souls. Please consider doing the right thing for the DIA, and stepping down. Please make way for leadership who will tap a diverse and vibrant professional staff to re-envision your museum. Please give us DIA leaders who can restore faith in an institution with such potential to be the true heart of a broad and diverse community. Please give me a reason to modify my estate plans to again enthusiastically fund the DIA. Please restore the institution I love.
Respectfully,
Ellice Engdahl
