Editorial Assistant Rachel High discusses the diversity of artistic traditions found throughout the Pacific Islands with Eric Kjellgren, author of How to Read Oceanic Art.

From the dense rain forests of New Guinea to the spice-rich islands of Indonesia, the tropical archipelagos of Polynesia and Micronesia, and the deserts of Australia, Oceania encompasses hundreds of distinct artistic traditions with an extensive variety of objects and mediums. Formidable, fascinating and even fearsome, they range in size from intricate jewelry to colossal sculptures and musical instruments. In addition to serving numerous practical and decorative purposes, many Oceanic objects were invested with religious or social symbolic significance and often have been used in enthralling ceremonies. The imagery of these remarkable works—ranging from ancestors, gods, and spirits to animals and inter-species composites—has had a direct impact on modern artists, including Paul Gauguin and the Surrealists. An invaluable resource for art-historical study, this third volume in the How to Read series is an important gateway to wider appreciation of Oceanic heritage and visual culture.

Oceania, which includes the islands of the central and South Pacific, covers one third of the earth, an area larger than that of all the continents combined. From the dense rain forests of New Guinea to the spice-rich islands of Indonesia, the tropical archipelagos of Polynesia and Micronesia, and the deserts of Australia, Oceania's peoples have developed hundreds of distinct artistic traditions that encompass an astonishing variety of forms and media. The remarkable imagery of Oceanic art has had a direct influence on many of the most important artists of the Western canon, from Paul Gauguin to the German Expressionists and the Surrealists, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art houses one of the world's premier collections of art from this region. Published in celebration of the opening of the Metropolitan's newly reinstalled galleries for the arts of Oceania, this generously illustrated volume, the first to survey the breadth of the Museum's collection, provides an introduction to the region's rich artistic heritage through more than two hundred masterworks. An overview of Oceanic art and a history of the Metropolitan's collection are followed by informative introductory essays on the major cultural regions of the Pacific. Detailed discussions of the individual objects place these outstanding Oceanic works inn their historical and cultural contexts. Highlights include selections from the Museum's holdings of sculpture from Polynesia and the Sepik region of New Guinea, religious images from Island Melanesia, and Island Southeast Asian textiles. A glossary and selected bibliography conclude this comprehensive volume.

Chief Audience Development Officer Donna Williams invites visitors to celebrate Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month at the Museum.

The Pacific Islands, Africa, and the Americas presents the art of three large areas of the world where vital cultural traditions have flourished for centuries—indeed for millennia—separate from the artistic traditions of the West. The art of these areas is thus highly individual, formed by dynamic, autochthonous societies and informed by their own valued heritage and traditions. Today, it is an art unfamiliar to many Western viewers even though the last hundred years have seen an explosion of interest in these regions. Researchers, artists, travelers, merchants, and many others have greatly expanded our awareness of the peoples and cultures of these vast and distant places. Included in this volume is a broad selection of the arts of these areas now housed in the Metropolitan Museum's Michael C. Rockefeller Wing. From the Pacific appear the extraordinary memorial poles made by the Asmat peoples of Irian Jaya in western New Guinea, and the commanding works of the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea. Other objects range from a New Ireland funerary carving to a Maori feather box from New Zealand, and important male figures from the Gambier and Easter islands in Polynesia. The African sculptures illustrated in this volume come from the forest and savanna areas south of the Sahara Desert. A compelling thirteenth-century terracotta figure from the ancient city of Jenne is the earliest African work in the collection. Numerous royal sculptures in bronze and ivory—including a magnificent sixteenth-century ivory mask—document the five-hundred-year history of art in the southern Nigerian kingdom of Benin. Wood figures and masks illustrate the diversity of styles in African art—from the stark geometry of the Dogon seated couple and the subtle abstraction of the great Fang head, to the spiritual presence of the Kongo power figures and the lush detail and expressive sensitivity of the famous Luba "Buli Master" stool. Precolumbian America is represented by works spanning a period of about twenty-five hundred years. The earliest objects here are ceramic and jade sculpture of the Olmec peoples of Mexico. A unique Maya sculpture in wood of a seated figure—the only known three-dimensional Maya wood object to have survived the ravages of a tropical rain-forest environment&mdsah;and one of the gems of the collection is also here. A rich selection of Precolumbian gold objects from Central America, Colombia, and Peru document this strong area of the Museum's holdings. And Peru, whose dry coastal sands have preserved fragile, otherwise easily perishable works, is further represented by such pieces as the great hangings of brilliant blue-and-yellow parrot feathers.

Known for the elegance and complexity of their decorative art, Marquesan artists were described by Paul Gauguin as possessing "an unheard of sense of decoration" in all they created. The extraordinary ways in which Marquesans adorned their world are reflected in virtually every type of object they made and used—from sacred figures of gods and ancestors to items that were purely functional. Long admired by artists, writers, and scholars, the art and culture of the Marquesas Islands have until recently been unfamiliar to larger audiences. However, the artists of the Marquesas archipelago were among the most accomplished in the Pacific. Their work was fashioned from a diversity of materials in forms ranging from delicate ivory ornaments and luxuriant featherwork to imposing figural sculpture in wood and stone. The human body was also an important focus for artistic expression. Adorned with finely crafted ornaments, elaborate coiffures, and intricate tattoos that sometimes covered the entire body, Marquesans themselves became living art forms. The vivid imagery of Marquesan art is testament to the myriad beings and creatures who inhabited the Marquesan universe—gods, ancestors, humans, lizards, turtles, fish—and to the islands' complex social and political organization. These art forms are explored in the present volume, published in conjunction with the exhibition "Adorning the World: Art of the Marquesas Islands," held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. In their catalogue essays, Eric Kjellgren, the Metropolitan's Evelyn A. J. Hall and John A. Friede Associate Curator of Oceanic Art, and Carol S. Ivory, Professor and Chair of the Department of Fine Arts at Washington State University, place the artistic traditions of the Marquesas within their cultural and historical context, giving insights into their distinctive visual imagery and their enduring influence on Western art and literature.

Arte del Mar explores the diverse, interconnected history of the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, where the sea was a vital source of cultural exchange. Before the arrival of Europeans, Caribbean societies formed a vast, multilingual network characterized by complex relationships among neighbors and distant contacts alike. Colonization and the subsequent forced mass migration of enslaved peoples from Africa later contributed to the heterogeneous culture of the region. Providing the first holistic look at Caribbean art, this Bulletin features masterworks from the early first millennium to the present, including works by celebrated Taíno artists from the Greater Antilles, as well as fascinating objects from lesser-known societies such as the Tairona from Colombia; the diverse kingdoms in Veraguas, Panama; and the communities in the Ulúa Valley, Honduras. A brief exploration of more contemporary artistic practice yields further insight into this unique ancestral legacy. Whether ancient or modern, the artworks presented here share a formal grammar linking politics, mythology, and ritual performance, revealing a distinctly Caribbean approach to creativity.

In celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Arts of Korea Gallery, this issue of the Bulletin invites us to reflect on the past while embracing the future. Featuring objects from the Bronze Age to the present, Lineages: Korean Art at The Met illustrates both the continuities and ruptures of style, form, and medium that have defined the dynamic terrain of Korean art. The 47 works included—from lacquer and ceramics to paintings and collage—express Korean tradition, history, and socio-cultural change over more than three centuries of creativity. This volume honors one of the first museum galleries in the United States dedicated to Korean art by offering readers a greater understanding of the nation's aesthetic past and future.

Following an extensive three-year renovation, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will reopen on November 14 its New Galleries for Oceanic Art, a completely redesigned and reinstalled exhibition space for the display of one of the world's premier collections of the arts of the Pacific Islands. Divided into three separate galleries in The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, the 17,000-square-foot exhibition space will present a substantially larger portion of the Metropolitan's Oceanic collection than was previously on view.

Following an extensive three-year renovation, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will reopen on November 14 its New Galleries for Oceanic Art, a completely redesigned and reinstalled exhibition space for the display of one of the world's premier collections of the arts of the Pacific Islands. Divided into three separate galleries in The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, the 17,000-square-foot exhibition space will present a substantially larger portion of the Metropolitan's Oceanic collection than was previously on view.

Following an extensive three-year renovation, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will reopen on November 14 its New Galleries for Oceanic Art, a completely redesigned and reinstalled exhibition space for the display of one of the world's premier collections of the arts of the Pacific Islands. Divided into three separate galleries in The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, the 17,000-square-foot exhibition space will present a substantially larger portion of the Metropolitan's Oceanic collection than was previously on view.

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