DAYTON, OH.- As part of The Dayton Art Institute’s 90 th Anniversary celebration, Chief Curator Will South has organized Hello World! Rarely Seen Art from Our Collection, a show that brings together the museum’s “hidden treasures”: seldomseen, as well as some neverbeforeseen, works of art from out of the museum’s vaults. The exhibition runs through January 3, 2010, at The Dayton Art Institute.

“This show represents an extraordinary opportunity to see, enjoy and learn about great paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, textiles, photography and more that have not recently been on view,” says Janice Driesbach, Director and CEO of The Dayton Art Institute.

The show’s hidden treasures span many different cultures and more than 2,000 years. The exhibition features works by many notable artists, including Pablo Picasso, Ansel Adams, John James Audubon, Paul Cezanne, Jackson Pollock and Dayton’s own Willis “Bing” Davis.

“To make Hello World! distinct, I decided not to separate works of art in the show by culture, as they are in our permanent collection, but rather to mix cultures and time periods, and focus instead on themes,” commented South.

The themes explored in Hello World! include faces and figures, how cultures decorate the world, landscapes (both real and imagined), and flight (of birds, of man, and of the imagination).

Hello World! also pays tribute to one of The Dayton Art Institute’s greatest treasures – its members and visitors – with an original sound and video installation created for the show by Dayton artists Tess Cortés, of Wright State University, and Mary Anne Kirk, of ThinkTV. Over the past year, Dayton residents were invited to participate in the making of this work by coming to the museum and being filmed telling their stories and sharing their memories of the museum. This contemporary work of art is a collage of images and voices – they appear, overlap and disappear, much like memory itself.

“Hello World! Is made up of many different objects, but it is held together by the idea that art has always had the power to amplify our experience of life, and to make our lives more special,” says South. “There will be numerous surprises within the show, making it an event not to be missed.”