MONTCLAIR, NEW JERSEY.- The Montclair Art Museum will celebrate the grand re-opening of its completed facility on Sunday, February 24th, 2002, with the inauguration of six new Permanent Collection galleries, a special traveling exhibition Art in 2 Worlds: The Native American Fine Art Invitational 1983-1997, and Face to Face, an exhibition of multimedia portraits by artist Peter Jacobs. MAM's new galleries will be dedicated to permanent installations of the Museum's collection of American art from the 18th and 19th century, contemporary art, sculpture, works on paper, and its renowned collection of Native American art and artifacts. Art in 2 Worlds: The Native American Fine Art Invitational 1983-1997 was organized by the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. Art in 2 Worlds celebrates the creativity and innovation of Native American artists by bringing together 52 works from the Heard's seven invitational exhibitions between 1983 and 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 and gain insight into the Native American Fine Art Movement. Art in 2 Worlds is a powerful showcase of the extraordinary traditions in Native American art which have found equally potent expression in the works of contemporary Native American artists. The exhibition is juxtaposed with MAM's newly-renovated Rand Gallery of Native American Art, giving illustration to the impressive continuity of Native American tradition and spirituality in its art forms from ancient times to today. The Heard Museum holds the only fine art invitational to exclusively feature indigenous artists and their artwork. The Native American Fine Art Invitational has become one of the most important events in the Native American fine arts scene today. The Invitational has featured the work of some of the finest established and emerging Native American artists, judged by juries composed of artists, art historians, contemporary curators and Museum directors from around the United States. Art in 2 Worlds, a program of ExhibitsUSA, a national division of Mid-America Arts Alliance, is generously supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the H&R Block Foundation, Cooper Foundation, Richard Florsheim Art Fund, Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Sprint, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the state arts agencies of Arkansas, Kansas, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas, and Philip Morris Companies. The exhibition was curated by Margaret Archuleta, former Curator of Fine Art at the Heard Museum. The exhibition's presentation at the Montclair Art Museum has been funded through the generosity of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. Additional support for the exhibition at the Museum was provided by the Charlotte Johnson Fund of the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation, Reginald J. Hollinger and Paula A. Tuffin, the Anna Brisco Memorial Fund, Michael and Marilyn Dore, Ellen and William Taubman, Hal and Elaine Sterling, and Bernard and Teresa Bressler.