2026 Spring Exhibition
Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD)
4454 Woodward Avenue
April 28, 2026
After being closed for eight months for renovations and upgrades, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) is finally open to the public again with four new exhibitions, more natural light thanks to new windows and, for the first time ever, an HVAC system.
It truly feels weird typing out “Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit,” because anyone in town has simply called it MOCAD for the past 20 years. That anniversary milestone is also part of the celebration.
That period has seen a lot of hits and a lot of misses – poor leadership, a bloated board of non-involved members, a lack of investment in Detroit artists while bringing in more marquee exhibitions from international names after those exhibits had already toured many of the larger institutions.
These issues aren’t unique to MOCAD. And steering these cultural institutions is often like rerouting a freight ship.
Still, it left a lot of Detroiters wondering if this museum could truly act as its cultural memory, whether it could present a fair representation of what was being made in the city, offering local artists the ability to have (often) their first museum show on their home turf. That’s the type of accolade that propels a career.
Under the leadership of Jova Lynne, MOCAD’s co-director and artistic director, there’s clearly a new path forward. It’s not just A/C and new windows.
Two of the spring exhibitions I’m reviewing here (the other two at a later date) are by native Detroiters with massive artistic legacies in the city. You could argue they are some of the most influential and best known artists around.
The gem of this spring exhibition is undoubtedly “Olayami Dabls: Detroit Cosmologies,” the first 50-year retrospective of Dabls and his stunning range of work.
It’s no surprise it’s in the largest gallery of MOCAD. It’s an exhibition that you could spend hours in.
For anyone familiar with his work only via the MBAD African Bead Museum in Detroit, it’s a wonderful trip into the work that came before. Instead of the large-scale installations with an array of objects, we get to see a portrait of Dabls as a young artist, more drawn to small-scale figurative scenes done in acrylic paints.
After years of covering the art scene, I had no clue about Dabls’ earlier work. Seeing it juxtaposed against his installation works of rubble arranged in chairs or large sculptures made from scrap found around Detroit gives the viewer the full totality of his career. It lets patrons find the common design threads and colors that have run through his work for decades.
The second major exhibition I’ll touch on here is by fiber artist Carole Harris, who, like Dabls, is mainly embracing abstraction in her most recent works.
I was shocked to hear that this exhibition, “This Side of the River,” is billed as the first comprehensive museum exhibition dedicated to her work. Harris boasts a career that spans five decades, working primarily in patterned quilts, many done by hand.
These are often the best pieces in the show, especially when you look closely to see the imperfections and conflict between not every single piece lining up just right). Full-on narrative storytelling his appening here, even if it isn’t fully clear to the patron viewing it upon first glance. With expanded displays and information, the MOCAD does a mighty job of setting the plate for viewers of all ages.
For anyone who hasn’t been in a while, the MOCAD will largely look the same with a bit more natural light and some air conditioning.
The main reason to be here, however, is to see these two main exhibitions, which mark some of the best the museum has hosted in years, largely thanks to committing to the legacy artists that have always been right here in our backyard.
