According to Mark Stryker of the Detroit Free Press, the Detroit Institute of Arts has launched a multimillion dollar campaign to collect African American art. With this landmark initiative, the institution will strive to strengthen its commitment to African American art by also funding exhibitions, artist commissions, community partnerships, staff development, and internships.

Spearheading the campaign is museum director Salvador Salort-Pons, who aims to shift the organization’s programming and collecting priorities to make DIA more culturally relevant to Detroit’s African American population. A recently acquired David Hammons’s sculpture, Bird, 1990, is representative of the institution’s new direction; estimated to cost at least one million dollars, the work is one of the most expensive pieces of contemporary art the DIA has bought in the past two decades. The six-foot tall piece, consisting of a Victorian bird cage enclosing a basketball encased in chicken wire, will go on display in the fall.