AFRICAN VOICES

Ambitious new African gallery opens at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC. “What we were trying to show is that what Africa is, what Africa has been, and what it can become, can be told through the creative skills of the people. What Africa is has often been lost in crisis,” said C. Payne Lucas, the president of Africare, a nonprofit aid organization and one of the advisers to the show.  Washington Post

New York Times account

  • PREVIOUSLY: OUT OF AFRICA: Smithsonian, undergoing $100 million renovation, has difficulty finding funds for large new gallery on African culture, set to open next month. Washington Post 11/17/99

IN CHINESE ART THERE IS NO RULEBOOK

A dozen experts meet in New York to determine whether a large painting at the Metropolitan is a rare 10th century Chinese masterpiece or a forgery cooked up just a few decades ago. “You take any great classical [Chinese] painting and call up twenty different art historians and you’d probably get twenty different opinions,” says one expert, who finds the lack of consensus “embarrassing.”  ArtsJournal.com