March 18, 2011— Mary Jo Ayers, adjunct curator of Native American art at the University of Virginia Art Museum, will give a talk on March 26 from 2 to 3 p.m. on Native American art on view in the museum's new Object Study Gallery.

Ayers has been a docent with the art museum since 1976, and an adjunct curator of Native American Art since the early 1980s. During this time, she has curated several major exhibitions for the museum, given numerous talks on the museum's Astor Collection of Native American art, and supervised the conservation and growth of the museum's Native American holdings. Recently, she collaborated with scholar Diane Boucher on an article about the Astor Collection that appeared in the fall issue of American Indian Art.

Ayers will discuss the artists whose work is represented in the Object Study Gallery. She will also address the broad questions of the exhibition of Native American art, the criteria for collection, its influences on artists and how the manner in which the work is displayed affects its meaning. Ayers will conclude with a brief discussion of the current direction of Native American art.

The U.Va. Art Museum offers its Saturday Special Tours on the third or fourth Saturday of every month. These tours offer the opportunity to join faculty, curators and scholars as they explore a variety of focused topics related to museum collections and exhibitions.

Saturday Special Tours are free and open to the public. For information, call 434-243-2050 or e-mail museumoutreach@virginia.edu. The museum is located at 155 Rugby Road, one block from the Rotunda.