DIA’s new 'Regeneration' exhibit explores Black filmmaking in early cinema

The history and impact Black filmmakers had on early moviemaking is explored in a new exhibit, “Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971,” at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

The exhibit, which opens Sunday and runs through June, takes visitors through the early days of Black cinema through the years following the civil rights movement.

Created and organized by the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the exhibit features more than 200 objects, including film excerpts, photographs, costumes, props, posters and interactive elements, juxtaposed with contemporary art from Theaster Gates, Glenn Ligon, Gary Simmons and Kara Walker.

It also includes a DIA-exclusive, complementary film series with the museum’s Detroit Film Theatre (DFT) presenting more than 20 films that showcase Black cinema history and representation.

“The contributions of Black writers, actors, directors and other creatives to films and cinematic culture have often been overlooked or misrepresented,” said DIA Director Salvador Salort-Pons. “It’s not just about representation, but a parallel track of American film history in which Black Americans were in full creative control of the films they wrote, starred in and produced — often directly influencing or even controlling popular interest in films.”

Doris Berger, vice president of curatorial affairs at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, and Rhea Combs, director of curatorial affairs at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, co-curated the exhibition, spending five years combing through archives and private collections throughout the United States and Europe.

The exhibition came about when Berger was doing research within the Academy’s archives and discovered posters and lobby cards of so-called “race” films that featured all Black casts and often made by Black filmmakers.

“I realized, ‘Oh my God, there’s so much history there that the wider public might not know as much (about),’” she said.

The curators chose the early 1970s as a natural end point for the exhibition, because that period of Black filmmaking is less well-known.

“We really, really wanted to highlight the earlier story and give it the space it needed and deserved to have,” Berger said.

One of the highlights of the exhibit is a dress worn by Lena Horne during “Stormy Weather.” The dress had been considered lost, but the curatorial team was able to identify the individual collector who owned the dress to borrow it for the exhibit and restore it.

“(The dresses and costumes) of African American performers are much more difficult to identify and find than their White counterparts,” Combs said. “They would get repurposed, they would be used elsewhere, just lost to time; so being able to identify this and confirm that it was actually worn by Lena Horne and then to be able to present it, is a real coup when it comes to film history.”

Another highlight is a Panoram, a video jukebox where visitors will have the opportunity to experience “soundies,” a three-minute musical performance from the 1930s/40s considered a pre-cursor to modern age music videos. The soundies were a cheap form of entertainment found throughout restaurants and bars and offered performance opportunities for burgeoning musicians and actors, some whom would go on to become big stars.

“It was another way of communicating in music to a wider audience, and Black performers also had a possibility to perform and be showcased,” Berger said.

The soundies were usually presented as a series in a reel with Black performances generally located at the end, Combs said, making it easier for them to be cut if sent out to segregated areas. For “Regeneration,” the curatorial team was able to restore and collate a reel of all Black performances.

Home videos from Black performers are another feature of the exhibit, showing private moments of them having fun with families or dressing up to go out, Berger said, including from big names like Cab Calloway and the Nicholas Brothers.

Combs said the videos give them agency, in contrast with the characters they perform.

“That sort of interiority that it allowed us to present in a show was really, really important to us to provide that counterbalance between what you see in terms of the stage and the glamour, and then how they choose to create their own image,” Combs said.

Elliot Wilhelm, the DIA’s curator of film, and Lawrence Baranski, its director of public programs, coordinated the film series. It includes many seldom seen films that date back to the early years of cinema, including “Within Our Gates” (1920) and “The Flying Ace” (1926). It also includes films with Detroit connections like “Eleven P.M.,” which was filmed in the city in 1928.

While most of the films have been previously shown at the theater, Wilhelm said there will be some DFT premieres, including 1937’s “Harlem on the Prairie.” The film is about a singing cowboy, performed by Detroit native Herb Jeffries.

“This was a film that existed in very poor condition for many, many years, but the Academy managed to get the resources together to do full restoration,” Wilhelm said.

While “Regeneration” will close in June, the DFT series will continue throughout the rest of the year, presenting films that continue into the present day.

Wilhelm said experiencing the exhibit is an emotional ride that is sometimes fun, sometimes painful, but always important.

“It feels like a missing piece of our history both as a country and as an art form is being shown to us, if not totally returned to us,” he said. “To me that is healthy, that is an to attempt to heal and to enlighten.”

'Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971'

Sunday - June 23

Detroit Institute of Arts

5200 Woodward Ave., Detroit.

The exhibit, including its film series, is included with general admission, which is free for Wayne, Oakland and Macomb county residents. www.dia.org.