Exhibition of Native American Fine Art at Kansas City's Carter Center

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JUNE 17, 2003

Contact: Daniel Billingsley
(816) 421-1388 Ext.201

Exhibition of Native American Fine Art at Kansas City's Carter Center

Kansas City, Mo.—ExhibitsUSA, the national museum service division of Mid-America Arts Alliance, announces that Art in 2 Worlds: The Native American Fine Art Invitational 1983–1997, an exhibition featuring the works of contemporary Native American fine artists, will open at the Anna and Kemper Carter Center for Visual Arts and Imaging Technology at Penn Valley Community College in Kansas City on June 24, 2003.

Art in 2 Worlds is an outstanding survey that showcases leading contemporary Native American fine artists, revealing the extraordinary richness and diversity of their artistic visions.

The Heard Museum in Phoenix, Ariz., was at the forefront of establishing the fine art invitational, featuring indigenous artists and their artwork exclusively. The Native American Fine Art Invitational has been one of the most important events in the Native American fine arts scene. Over the past 15 years, the Invitational has featured the work of some of the finest established and emerging Native American artists.

Art in 2 Worlds celebrates the creativity and innovation of Native American artists by bringing together 52 works from the Heard Museum’s seven invitational exhibitions from 1983 to 1997. Working in a variety of media, including oil and acrylic paint, watercolor, pastel, sculpture, ceramics, lithography, etching, serigraphy, and mixed media, the 48 artists represented in this exhibition shatter stereotypes of Indian art and afford viewers the opportunity to expand their understanding of and gain insight into the Native American fine art movement.

The Carter Center, a new addition to Penn Valley Community College, will host the exhibition through July 26. The Carter Center features ten classrooms and labs, plus a gallery where the exhibition will be held. The gallery is open Tuesday-Friday from noon to 6 p.m.; Saturday from noon to 3 p.m.; and Friday, July 11, from 6 to 9 p.m., for the Crossroads Arts District First Friday. Penn Valley, one of the Metropolitan Community Colleges, is located at 3201 Southwest Trafficway in Kansas City, Mo.

Art in 2 Worlds: The Native American Fine Art Invitational 1983–1997 has been exhibited at the Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, N.J.; Mashantucket Pequot Museum, Mashantucket, Conn.; the Perspective Gallery, Blacksburg, Va.; the J. Wayne Stark Gallery, College Station, Tex.; and the William D. Cannon Art Gallery, Carlsbad, Calif. After its close at the Carter Center, the exhibition travels to Washington State University in Pullman, Wash., and the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, N. Dak.

ExhibitsUSA is the national museum service division of Mid-America Arts Alliance, based in Kansas City, Missouri, and it is generously supported by the Houston Endowment Inc., the Meadows Foundation, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Douglas County Bank/Ross and Marianna Beach, ConocoPhillips, Altria Group, Inc., the Don and Sybil Harrington Foundation, Hortense Oldfather, the Society of North American Goldsmiths, the William T. Kemper Foundation, Commerce Bank, trustee, DST Systems, Inc., Maureen and Robert Decherd, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the state arts agencies of Arkansas, Kansas, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas. Additional support for many current exhibitions has been provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Louis and Elizabeth Flarsheim Charitable Foundation, the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, the H&R Block Foundation, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, the Cooper Foundation, and the Helen Jones Foundation.