New exhibition at the Diker Pavilion for Native Arts and Cultures … “Beauty Surrounds Us,” September 23, 2006 – September 23, 2008 … A free event for the whole family … take the subway to Bowling Green …

Nuwukmiut Eskimo Football	Transformation Mask	Sioux Drum	Quechua Child’s Costume

The Diker Pavilion for Native Arts and Cultures, which houses objects fashioned of bone, hide, clay, reeds, seeds, wood, metal and other stuff, opens Friday at the Smithsonian’s center in Lower Manhattan.
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The new 6,000-square foot pavilion, which includes a performance area that can seat 400, occupies former storage space under the grand oval rotunda on the main floor of the center’s home, the United States Custom House on Bowling Green. The marble floor has been replaced by one of sprung maple suitable for dance performances; the walls have been covered with handsome cherry paneling, sloped gently inward; and 10 vertical exhibit cases have been placed in the window niches, covering up a bleak view of an inner courtyard. Behind the performance space is a curving wall of jade-green translucent glass. (The pavilion is named for the New York collectors Valerie and Charles M. Diker, who contributed $1 million toward its realization.)

“Finding Beauty in Usefulness,” by Grace Glueck, The New York Times, September 22, 2006
Diker Pavilion for Native Arts and Cultures at the George Gustav Heye Center of the National Museum of the American Indian, Free admission, web site, 1 Bowling Green, open 10 am – 5 pm every day except December 25th, Thursdays until 8 pm, 212-514-3700