I blame Yinka Shonibare MBE. I would never have got into a row with the director of the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris over the 'colour' of his staff had it not been for the British-Nigerian artist.
In fact, I probably would never have set foot in a French cultural institution housing non-western ethnographic collections if I hadn't been lured there by a new installation by an artist of Shonibare's stature.
This is an important point in favour of the commission; on the level of branding it simply cannot be faulted. Take one culturally suspect institution (the interior decor has been described as 'jungle whimsy'). Add an ambitious commission by a fashionable African artist with impeccable political credentials and, bingo! - instant cultural legitimacy.
But it would be wrong to dismiss Shonibare's Garden of Love (2007) as artistic gloss for unpalatable historical collections. The visitor wanders through an elaborate labyrinth, and after a few wrong turns through the leafy tunnels, finds dimly-lit clearings inhabited by three amorous couples, taken from images in the Progress of Love (1771-73) by Jean-Honoré Fragonard.
The aristocratic period costumes are made from Shonibare's trademark African wax-print textiles bought in Brixton market. The figures are headless, foreshadowing the imminent revolution and its guillotine.
I felt like a voyeur watching doomed orchid-like couples frolicking in ignorance of the fragility of their hot-house lives. For Shonibare the period 'when nobility lived luxuriously, shortly before their world was turned upside down by the masses' resonates with the contemporary situation as 'people in the south see Europe as an overflowing basket of fruit'.
Shonibare's headless aristocrats made me more receptive somehow to the 'non-western' decapitated heads on display in the main gallery. As a British Asian I simply felt more welcome at Musée du Quai Branly for being introduced to it through the artwork of a British-Nigerian aesthete.
But it still felt very odd that the only visible minority ethnic staff I met on my day-long visit were cleaning and staffing the cloakroom.
Stéphane Martin, the director of Musée du Quai Branly, could not tell me what proportion of senior management at the museum is 'non-western' because it's against French law to collect such information.
And anyway, it would be 'so embarrassing' to ask such questions. Shonibare has consistently dealt with historical themes in his work and the large-scale nature of this delicately curated commission is not remotely tokenistic, nor was the exhibition preceding it: La Bouche du Roi by Beninese artist, Romuald Hazoumé.
So why do museums have more success in one-off commissions to artists of African descent than in recruiting a representative permanent workforce?
There has been a trend in the UK to commission artists of African descent as part of the commemoration of the bicentenary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.
It's obvious why these commissions are attractive. When residencies or commissions are successful, as in the Susan Hiller project at the Freud Museum, they make lasting art and defamiliarise familiar collections for existing audiences as well as attracting new people.
Many artists interested in race and history are, unsurprisingly, non-white themselves. This is, frankly, an added bonus. Most museum professionals responsible for African history are all too keen to work with people from the cultural background they want to reach.
But both contemporary art and cultural ownership of our racially loaded heritage are contentious areas demanding high levels of skill and confidence. Blunders are common.
Sophie Howarth, the head of education and research at the Institute of International Visual Arts says that a common difficulty is that museums naturally seek to promote the interpretation of their own collections and are too directive, asking artists to respond to primary sources in need of 'cultural re-appropriation'.
This approach can render the artist a sort of sophisticated adman for the collections and result in mediocre art that helps nobody. As Howarth says, 'In these situations, we have to ask if it's lack of quality on the artist's front or if curators are making the artwork serve another purpose.'
Artist Said Adrus agrees, in the light of his collaboration with Woking Galleries to create Pavillion with a View (2004), an installation about a historic burial ground for Muslim soldiers.
'Woking's remit was educational rather than artistic and they didn't seem to realise the full artistic potential of the work [which has since shown at Tate Britain]. The individuals I worked with were very supportive, but their hands were tied by local authority bureaucracy and they were too cautious.'
Ironically, contemporary art is often imagined to be more accessible than social history and many believe it can help to attract younger more diverse audiences.
But history enthusiasts are not necessarily art-lovers. Zoe Whitely, curator of Uncomfortable Truths at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), found that first-time audiences who had been specifically attracted to the V&A by the slavery theme of the exhibition were often hoping for a more exhaustive social history experience, rather than the tangential artistic one on offer.
Commissioning names like Shonibare can result in great art and good publicity for collections, but it shouldn't be compensating for unrepresentative workforces. In England, we call that all fur coat and no knickers.
Sara Wajid is a freelance journalist
In fact, I probably would never have set foot in a French cultural institution housing non-western ethnographic collections if I hadn't been lured there by a new installation by an artist of Shonibare's stature.
This is an important point in favour of the commission; on the level of branding it simply cannot be faulted. Take one culturally suspect institution (the interior decor has been described as 'jungle whimsy'). Add an ambitious commission by a fashionable African artist with impeccable political credentials and, bingo! - instant cultural legitimacy.
But it would be wrong to dismiss Shonibare's Garden of Love (2007) as artistic gloss for unpalatable historical collections. The visitor wanders through an elaborate labyrinth, and after a few wrong turns through the leafy tunnels, finds dimly-lit clearings inhabited by three amorous couples, taken from images in the Progress of Love (1771-73) by Jean-Honoré Fragonard.
The aristocratic period costumes are made from Shonibare's trademark African wax-print textiles bought in Brixton market. The figures are headless, foreshadowing the imminent revolution and its guillotine.
I felt like a voyeur watching doomed orchid-like couples frolicking in ignorance of the fragility of their hot-house lives. For Shonibare the period 'when nobility lived luxuriously, shortly before their world was turned upside down by the masses' resonates with the contemporary situation as 'people in the south see Europe as an overflowing basket of fruit'.
Shonibare's headless aristocrats made me more receptive somehow to the 'non-western' decapitated heads on display in the main gallery. As a British Asian I simply felt more welcome at Musée du Quai Branly for being introduced to it through the artwork of a British-Nigerian aesthete.
But it still felt very odd that the only visible minority ethnic staff I met on my day-long visit were cleaning and staffing the cloakroom.
Stéphane Martin, the director of Musée du Quai Branly, could not tell me what proportion of senior management at the museum is 'non-western' because it's against French law to collect such information.
And anyway, it would be 'so embarrassing' to ask such questions. Shonibare has consistently dealt with historical themes in his work and the large-scale nature of this delicately curated commission is not remotely tokenistic, nor was the exhibition preceding it: La Bouche du Roi by Beninese artist, Romuald Hazoumé.
So why do museums have more success in one-off commissions to artists of African descent than in recruiting a representative permanent workforce?
There has been a trend in the UK to commission artists of African descent as part of the commemoration of the bicentenary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.
It's obvious why these commissions are attractive. When residencies or commissions are successful, as in the Susan Hiller project at the Freud Museum, they make lasting art and defamiliarise familiar collections for existing audiences as well as attracting new people.
Many artists interested in race and history are, unsurprisingly, non-white themselves. This is, frankly, an added bonus. Most museum professionals responsible for African history are all too keen to work with people from the cultural background they want to reach.
But both contemporary art and cultural ownership of our racially loaded heritage are contentious areas demanding high levels of skill and confidence. Blunders are common.
Sophie Howarth, the head of education and research at the Institute of International Visual Arts says that a common difficulty is that museums naturally seek to promote the interpretation of their own collections and are too directive, asking artists to respond to primary sources in need of 'cultural re-appropriation'.
This approach can render the artist a sort of sophisticated adman for the collections and result in mediocre art that helps nobody. As Howarth says, 'In these situations, we have to ask if it's lack of quality on the artist's front or if curators are making the artwork serve another purpose.'
Artist Said Adrus agrees, in the light of his collaboration with Woking Galleries to create Pavillion with a View (2004), an installation about a historic burial ground for Muslim soldiers.
'Woking's remit was educational rather than artistic and they didn't seem to realise the full artistic potential of the work [which has since shown at Tate Britain]. The individuals I worked with were very supportive, but their hands were tied by local authority bureaucracy and they were too cautious.'
Ironically, contemporary art is often imagined to be more accessible than social history and many believe it can help to attract younger more diverse audiences.
But history enthusiasts are not necessarily art-lovers. Zoe Whitely, curator of Uncomfortable Truths at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), found that first-time audiences who had been specifically attracted to the V&A by the slavery theme of the exhibition were often hoping for a more exhaustive social history experience, rather than the tangential artistic one on offer.
Commissioning names like Shonibare can result in great art and good publicity for collections, but it shouldn't be compensating for unrepresentative workforces. In England, we call that all fur coat and no knickers.
Sara Wajid is a freelance journalist