At Museum Of Art & Design 'Changing Hands: Art Without Reservation, 2'

NEW YORK CITY

:In 2002 the Museum of Arts and Design launched "Changing Hands: Art Without Reservation, 1: Contemporary Native American Art from the Southwest," the first of three major exhibitions that place contemporary art by Native North American artists within the context of international art and culture. The series documents the renaissance that has taken place in recent decades among Native American artists working in both traditional and nontraditional materials such as wood, clay, glass, metal, fiber and mixed media.

"Changing Hands: Art without Reservation, 2: Contemporary Native North American Art from the West, Northwest and Pacific," will run from September 22 through January 22 at the museum, 40 West 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It will then travel nationally to six museums through 2007.

"Changing Hands 2" will focus on more than 300 works by 190 Native American artists from the Plains, Prairie, Plateau and Pacific regions in both the United States and Canada, as well as artists from Alaska and Hawaii, all of whom are breaking new ground within their respective cultural communities.

The exhibition, funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, will fill the museum, with additional works on view in Gallery W52, which is in the ground floor lobby of the adjacent Deutsche Bank building, 31 West 52nd Street. Gallery W52 is free and open to the public daily, 8 am to 9 pm.

"Changing Hands 2" presents contemporary Native American art that transcends ethnographic and anthropological interpretations. The selected artists both acknowledge and contemplate the more classic indigenous art forms as they challenge previous definitions of Native American art and how it is perceived. These artists examine and confront their past with both critical and creative eyes; the exhibition emphasizes three-dimensional objects, exploring how these artists often work in more unexpected or nontraditional mediums including installation and performance arts.

"From the inception of this important series," says Holly Hotchner, director of the Museum of Arts and Design, "our goal was to underscore this museum's commitment to recognizing emerging artists with a synergistic approach to the fields of craft, art and design. Many of these artists will be presented in New York, and indeed in a museum, for the first time."

"Changing Hands 2" raises questions about cultural identity in a changing world. It delves into the question about the interface of tradition and innovation that informs con-temporary Native American art today, and about the juxtaposition of reservation life with contemporary urban life.

Co-curators of the exhibition are Ellen Napiura Taubman, former head of the department of Native American art at Sotheby's, and David Revere McFadden, chief curator of the Museum of Arts and Design. During the past five years, they have sought out a diverse group of Native North American artists, many of whose work has been un-known or underrecognized by the larger and more wide-spread fine arts community. "Changing Hands 2" also features many artists who al-ready have distinguished histories of exhibitions at major art museums, and who are currently represented in museum and private collections in North America and Europe.

For information, 212-956-3535 or madmuseum.org.