GEORGE GUSTAV HEYE CENTER OF SMITHSONIAN'S NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN The George Gustav Heye Center of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian opened in New York City on Oct. 30. The George Gustav Heye Center has three inaugural exhibitions, including an exhibit of masterworks from the museum's collection of more than 1 million objects. The Heye Center is located in lower Manhattan in a historic landmark building, the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House adjacent to Battery Park. Admission is free and the museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The center is accessable via the #4 and #5 subways to Bowling Green, and the #1 to South Ferry. Occupying the first and second floors of the building, the museum devotes approximately 20,000 square feet to exhibition galleries and public spaces, including two museum shops, a resource center and two education workshop rooms. The three exhibitions are complemented by a series of free public programs: American Indian dance and music, theater performances, and film and video festivals. (Dates will be announced.) INAUGURAL EXHIBITIONS "Creation's Journey: Masterworks of Native American Identity and Belief" features 165 objects selected for their beauty, rarity and historical significance, and representation of diverse cultures. The objects come from tribal groups from North, Central and South America, with dates ranging from 3,200 B.C. to the present. Among the objects are: Kiowa, Osage and Yuma cradleboards; Sioux and Comanche dresses; Potawatomi, Seminole and Huichol dolls; a Cheyenne headdress; a Nez Perce shirt; a Tlingit wooden telescope box and a Chilkat wooden-bear hat from the Northwest Coast; an Eskimo kayak; Huron cigar cases with moosehair embroidery; a Mayan ceramic vessel with a nobleman smoking tobacco and Oaxaco jade pendites from Mexico; a Karaja feathered headdress from Brazil; Iroquois hair combs; a Navajo rug and a Navajo serape; Choctaw sashes; and a number of artworks by renowned American Indian painters. "All Roads Are Good: Native Voices on Life and Culture" displays 311 objects chosen by 23 American Indian selectors, who were asked to select items from the museum's collection that were of artistic, cultural, spiritual and personal significance. The exhibit's object labels are written by the Indian selectors themselves. Objects include: bandolier bags from the Ojibwa; robes and a parasol from the Sioux; dough bowl from the Santo Domingo Pueblo, New Mexico; an urn from the Carchi Province, Ecuador; and wooden carvings from the Kwakiutl of British Columbia. "This Path We Travel: Celebrations of Contemporary Native American Creativity" is a unique collaborative exhibition featuring the collective and individual talents of 15 contemporary Native American artists. The artists have met at various locations over the past several years and experimented with the relationship between Native and contemporary, and traditional and innovative. This exhibition combines installation with sculpture, performance, poetry, music and video. The artists present their views and concepts of creation, the importance of sacred places and objects, and how the Indian universe has been affected by conflicts with Euro-American beliefs and cultures. "This Path We Travel" is designed to enhance the visitors appreciation for the cultural achievement of living Native American artists, according to National Museum of the American Indian Director W. Richard West Jr. (Southern Cheyenne). "This Path We Travel" will complement the traditional work that will be viewed in "Creation's Journey" and "All Roads Are Good". In addition to the three major exhibitions, an orientation exhibit provides the museum visitor with a brief history of the Delaware, or Lenni Lenape, the first inhabitants of Manhattan Island; the mission of the museum; and information on the architecture of the Custom House, as well as information about other points of interest in lower Manhattan. THE COLLECTION The National Museum of the American Indian's collection of more than 1 million objects is considered to be one of the finest and most comprehensive collections of the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere. The collection was assembled over a 54-year period, beginning in 1903, by George Gustav Heye (1874-1957), a New York banker who traveled extensively, accumulating the collection, which he later displayed in New York's Museum of the American Indian (now the National Museum of the American Indian, formerly located at 155th Street and Broadway). The collection includes 517,533 archaeological objects and 151,583 ethnological objects from virtually every state in the United States, every province in Canada, Mexico and every country of Central and South America, the Caribbean and Greenland. The collection also includes ethnological materials from related peoples of Siberia, Norway and Russia. It includes more than 86,000 historic and contemporary prints and negatives, as well as extensive film and video archives, and a library of more than 40,000 volumes. Approximately 70 percent of the collection comes from the United States (67 percent) and Canada (3 percent), and about 30 percent is from Mexico, Central and South America. The collection includes blankets and fine wood, horn and stone carvings from the Northwest Coast of North America; Navajo weavings and blankets; archaeological objects from the Caribbean; textiles from Peru and Mexico; basketry and pottery from the Southwest; gold work from Columbia, Peru and Mexico; jade from the Olmec and Maya peoples of Mexico; Aztec mosaics; painted hides and garments from the North American Plains Indians; and headwear from numerous cultural groups of North and South America. THE BUILDING The museum's space has been carefully renovated by Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut, and Whitelaw Architects of New York in order to maintain the historical character of the building. The total space of the Heye Center is 82,000 square feet. The Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, formerly known as the Old U.S. Custom House, is a Beaux-Arts style building, designed by architect Cass Gilbert and completed in 1907. It is a designated National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark. THE FUND-RAISING CAMPAIGN The legislation that established the National Museum of the American Indian mandated that the Smithsonian provide one-third of the construction cost of the museum's National Mall facility in Washington, D.C. The remaining two-thirds will be federal funds provided to the Smithsonian by the Congress. The estimated total cost of construction is $106 million. A more precise figure cannot be determined until programming and design activities have been completed and the architects have produced working drawings. The current schedule calls for programming and design to be completed during fiscal year 1996 (which ends on Sept. 30, 1996). Therefore, the Smithsonian's one-third share must be raised before that time. The National Campaign for the National Museum of the American Indian has a planning goal of $60 million, which includes the Smithsonian's one-third share of the construction cost, as well as support funds for the museum's outreach and educational programs. THE FUTURE Legislation establishing the National Museum of the American Indian as part of the Smithsonian Institution was signed in 1989. In Washington, D.C., the museum will be built on the National Mall near the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. This building is expected to be completed by 2001. In addition to the Mall museum and the Heye Center in New York City, a Cultural Resources Center will be built in Suitland, Md., about six miles from Washington, D.C. This center will house the bulk of the collection and will also accommodate associated activities such as research, collections conservation, exhibition support functions and outreach services. # # # # Gustav George Heye Center National Museum of the American Indian Smithsonian Institution One Bowling Green New York, NY 10004 For press information contact: Lee Ann Fahey (212) 825-8199 Dan Agent (202) 357-2627 For recorded information call: (212) 668-6624 This information was provided by the Resource Center: (212) 825-8118 e-mail: nmai@echonyc.com .