Showcasing an array of beautifully refined ceramics from the southwestern United States, A River Apart: The Pottery of Cochiti and Santo Domingo Pueblos is on view at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture through June 6, 2010. The two pueblos, which are located in the the Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico, shared a ceramic tradition for centuries until contact with outsiders set them on divergent artistic paths. Through a display of nearly 250 pieces from the museum’s collection, visitors are provided with a range of perspectives––art historical, anthropological, curatorial, and aesthetic––that serve to reveal the multiple meanings the pottery often holds.

The new exhibition at the Mingei International Museum centers around the theme of beauty and meaning of objects used in the various contexts of family life, tribal and community objectives, and religious ceremony. Rite and Ritual presents a variety of works, including African drums, feathered Amazonian headdresses, and masks and ceremonial items from a number of world cultures.

In late July, LACMA’s new Latin American galleries will be opened to the public. The galleries will feature recent acquisitions, Spanish colonial, modern, and contemporary art, as well as a collection of ancient American art, which spans 3,000 years of North, Central, and South American history. The pre-Columbian material will be displayed in a special installation, designed by artist Jorge Pardo, that abandons the traditional culture-chronology layout used in most museum galleries in favor of a thematic approach intended to provide a greater cultural, intellectual, and aesthetic context for the ancient objects. Pardo’s installation design was funded in part by the David Bohnett Foundation, Ann Tenenbaum, and Thomas H. Lee, and other donors.

A Stolen World denounces the plundering of art resources that many countries have suffered. The market for stolen works of art is among the world's largest illegal trades. One notorious example presented in the exhibition is a group of textiles unearthed by tomb robbers on Peru's Paracas Peninsula. Fine multicolored textiles, with representations of human figures, animals, and flora, they were used as funerary garments for the deceased. The textiles are highly sought after, especially since they are often in an excellent state of preservation. On view through 2010.

The Museum für Völkerkunde in Leipzig is inaugurating its new Americas Wing with a permanent exhibition entitled Die Amerikas. Lebenswelten vom Eismeer bis nach Feuerland. The new galleries occupy over 6,000 square feet of space and cover a wide variety of areas and indigenous cultures. Objects from the museum's collections of Nazca, Chimu, and Moche ceramics complement sculptures from pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica and Tarahumara works, which in turn relate to pieces from North American Indian and Amazonian cultures. This permanent exhibition offers a complete and panoramic overview of the traditional cultures and societies that developed and evolved on the vast continents of the Americas.

The College of Wooster Art Museum has recently enlarged their African art collection by more than 100 objects through a very generous gift from William C. Mithoefer. The objects, which originate from 12 different countries and more than 30 ethnic groups, date from ancient times to the late twentieth century, and include stone carvings, brass pendants, pipe bowls, akuaba figures, masks, and more. The expanded collection will be on view from September this year.

Below is a list of results for recent auctions of African, Oceanic, American Indian, and Pre-Columbian art. This information is generated by the individual auction houses that held the sales. Please don't hesitate to alert us to other results using the "contact" button to the left so that this space is always current.