Last May, the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) opened the “7 Mile + Livernois” exhibition, featuring the work of Tiff Massey, a Detroit artist whose art centers around “adornment and community.” At 42 years old, Massey is the youngest artist to have a solo exhibit in the DIA.

In a conversation hosted at the DIA between Tiff Massey and Detroit filmmaker and producer Dream Hampton, Massey shared how she began her career as an artist with jewelry as her first medium: “I remember some of my first objects were making best friend rings and things like that. My first jewelry teacher, Miss Henry, was definitely really influential. She saw that there was something in me and would always push me.”

Massey began metalsmithing as a teenager while attending Mercy High School in Farmington Hills and later sold her jewelry at block parties hosted by her father, as well as art fairs like the Ann Arbor Art Fair. Jewelry has always been a part of her family and identity. She described going to jewelry stores with her parents as a child and being exposed to luxury fashion by her older siblings. To her, “7 Mile + Livernois” is an homage to her parents and “the level of floss of how they adorned themselves.”

After graduating from Eastern Michigan University with a Bachelor of Science, Massey went on to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in metalsmithing at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. There, she was the only black woman on campus and the first Black woman to graduate from the metalsmithing department.

Massey collaborated with Katie Pfohl, the curator of contemporary art at the DIA, to bring “7 Mile + Livernois” to life. Pfohl has worked at several museums across the country including the Whitney Museum in New York and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This is Pfohl’s first exhibition that she curated at the DIA. Notably, the DIA commissioned four of Massey’s pieces for the exhibition, making it the largest the museum has ever done with a Detroit artist. Pfohl called Massey’s exhibit “special” and said, “It’s a really immersive exhibition. We painted all the walls of the museum black for the installation. You walk in and you feel really transported.”

Pfohl hopes that the exhibition introduces contemporary art to new audiences and showcases Detroit’s art scene. She stated, “I really hope that this exhibition shows how exhibits, even big ones at the DIA, can really reflect and be responsive to the communities that they’re in. The show tries to create a new relationship between the museum and the city, so I hope people see how that can look as well.”

The largest sculpture in the exhibition, “Whatupdoe,” illustrates Massey’s messages perfectly. It is a giant necklace made up of interlocking steel cubes of varying sizes and shapes, hanging off the wall and lying on the ground. The necklace is almost perfectly symmetrical, with the biggest cube in the center, growing smaller as it climbs up the wall, and reconnecting on the other side of the wall, jutting into the hallway of the museum, outside of the main exhibition space.

Making a piece of this size was no easy feat, as the necklace weighs approximately 15 thousand pounds. A fabricator and a Chicago-based rigging group were brought on to construct the piece, along with other pieces. Pfohl described the complicated logistics behind the piece, explaining how it wasn’t able to be welded outside of the building due to its size, nor inside because it posed safety and fire hazards, endangering the other pieces in the museum. The necklace was pieced together with an architectural crane inside the gallery.

The Detroit Free Press described “Whatupdoe” as, “the work is really about thinking about jewelry as a metaphor for other kinds of connection.” The piece, being a giant necklace that anyone could “wear,” speaks to Massey’s message of community.

The piece, “Baby Bling,” is a row of eleven giant red hair knockers, an accessory that children all over the world wear in their hair. “Baby Bling” evokes nostalgia—even for those who have never worn hair knockers, the familiar sound of plastic beads clanking together as a little girl’s hair sways behind her is recognizable. Massey shares her intention of the piece, stating: “It literally transports you to be a little child, because that’s how you’re interacting with those objects. It’s how we progress through life. It’s telling our story, but then it’s also creating very specific portraits of a time in life.”

Similarly, the piece, “I Remember Way Back When,” located across from “Baby Bling,” conveys the same feeling of nostalgia. As a partner to “Bling Baby,” “I Remember Way Back When” is a row of eleven giant sculpted pieces of red stained wood, designed to resemble plastic hair clips.The vibrant red and exaggerated scale of the pieces turn everyday objects into artwork, emphasizing their presence and significance in the lives of young girls.

Massey ties every piece in the exhibit back to her family. “I’ve Got Bundles and I Got Flewed Out (Green)” is a wall of kanekalon hair styled by Massey’s personal stylist. All the hairstyles are in shades of green, standing out against the black wall. The piece pays homage to Detroit as the “Black hair capital of the world” and Massey’s family. “The hair wall kind of looks like a succulent wall. So it’s really about growth, it’s about labor, it’s about relationships, it’s about the familial,” Massey told Hampton. Dawn, a patron of the DIA, reacted to the piece, saying, “I think it’s very artistic, I love it. And I’m thinking that’s Rapunzel,” pointing to a longer ponytail.

Currently, Massey is working on building her own space in Detroit for young Black artists. She is also working on her first bronze commission for the WNBA team and a commission for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. In the future, she hopes to establish a Tiff Massey Sculpture park in Detroit and represent the USA in the Venice Biennale, an international cultural exhibition hosted annually.

“7 Mile + Livernois” will be on display at the DIA until May 11, 2025. Admission is free for residents of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties.