The Detroit Institute of Arts

Back to Detroit for a minute.

On our last weekend in Detroit, we finally decided to go to the Detroit Institute of Arts, one of the last items on our bucket list. So we took a leisurely drive down Woodward and ended up at the museum, strolling around outside for a minute to take some pictures.

Then as we walked in, we were informed that the museum was closing in ten minutes. What the what???! Ugh. Bad planning on my part. BUT because there was only ten minutes, they said we could go in for free, we just had to be out by six. And so began the mad dash around a museum that I'm sure is much bigger than I'm aware.

Fun fact: I love art, but I don't really care for pre-renaissance art. There, I said it. Whatever. But of course we were directed towards the oldest section of art they had and got kinda lost in there until we ended up in this great hall with the Detroit Industry Mural by Diego Rivera! I was in shock.

I had studied (and taught about) those frescos for Academic Decathlon and new they were in Detroit, but I completely forgot! And the day before that, Josh had done a tour of one of the Ford plants so he actually recognized a lot of what was going on in the mural. I was so so excited and we ended up staying in that room for most of the rest of the time before we realized there was a whole other section of the museum that we didn't know was there.

I almost regret spending so much time there instead of checking out the modern wing, but it was just so cool and I had to look at every little detail. Well, all the details I could quickly see in those five minutes.

So we made a mad dash through the modern wing, snapping a few pictures of Picasso and Van Gogh and murals by people I don't know because we didn't even have time to stop and look at placards. And then security guards started corralling people towards the front door...

We awkwardly walked through the wedding reception being set up and past the bride and groom and out to the front where wedding pictures were going on. Then we took more pictures and left.

That was our ten minute walk-through of the Detroit Institute of Arts.