PONTIAC, MI.- The Museum of New Art (MONA) will present Changing Cities: Chicago, on view from April 14 - May 12. Sister cities in America’s Midwest, both historically and culturally, Chicago and Detroit are suddenly swapping artists. Why not!

In the last several decades, Detroit has suffered a growing loss of cultural history, and, so, any real sense of place. The city’s art institutions have been debilitated by short-term memory and lack of local interest. Artists have quickly been lost to time, either through death or diaspora. Currently, there is no established system, gallery nor collecting, for nurturing or encouraging an artist to stay and thrive; none for the necessary growth to create a career or even to form some collective identity of the city.

In this first in a set of new initiatives, the Museum of New Art (MONA) is launching a bold response to overcome this forced entropy. Changing Cities will hopefully be the initial step in establishing a global art exchange, swapping Detroit artists and work with artists in other cities.

First in this series will be an interchange with 8 artists selected from the city of Chicago.

Chosen by curator and Chicago art's activist Paul Klein, the range of medium and subject will infuse this inaugural exchange with all the energy of that city's diverse, thriving art scene, transplanted for a month to Detroit. Soon to follow, a contingent of fresh Detroit artists will be relocated to Chicago for their own reciprocal ground-breaking exhibition.