The MFAH recently announced a new “Art of the Islamic World Initiative.” So that means the museum is committing resources towards "major initiatives" in three regions (Latin American and Asian rounding out the efforts). On the one hand, it's a smart and ambitious strategy; each region has a huge untapped population already in Houston, and cultivating these unpicked orchards of potential energy and support makes sense. But with every new announcment, the MFAH seems to dilute the cool factor of the previous one, and I wonder if the institution can successfully pursue all these directions at once (by comparison, the Met's departments of Asian, Islamic and African art were founded in 1915, 1932 and 1969, respectively).
We’re running out of continents
