Five years after French President Jacques Chirac urged the Louvre to create a permanent place for “primitive art,” the museum has opened the doors to its first galleries of African, Asian, Oceanic, and American art. “The idea is that, from now on, the 112 works on display there should be treated as the aesthetic equals of the Egyptian, Greek or Renaissance art elsewhere in the building.” But “a good many unhappy curators” are are grumbling about the shift. – New York Times