Contemporary Asian art curator, seeks to explain the artist's intent in the wall label

"Curator of contemporary Asian art at the Freer Gallery of Art and Sackler Gallery, seeks to explain the artist's intent in the wall label: "Trade routes and colonial encounters often resulted in a circulation of natural and material culture in many directions."
That about says it all, I guess it means that people exchange stuff.

Exhibit curator Miss Diamond, who's also coordinating curator of contemporary Asian art at the Freer Gallery of Art and Sackler Gallery, seeks to explain the artist's intent in the wall label: "Trade routes and colonial encounters often resulted in a circulation of natural and material culture in many directions."
But is it art if it requires so much explanatory text? Shouldn't a work of art project its own messages unassisted by words?
The same query goes for the "Pearls" installation, strands of paper beads made from books. Here, again, the story overwhelms the art. When the artist visited the Sackler last March, she was inspired to make necklaces after seeing the museum's jade, gold and glass beads collection. But Miss Gill's "pearls" are of cut-up and glued book pages rather than precious materials.
Again, Miss Diamond's label is necessary for understanding the work. She writes that "Pearls" began as a gift-giving project. She created text-embossed paper beads from friends' books, made them into necklaces, and returned them "as objects bearing new layers of meaning." More...

Contemporary Asian Art is the online gallery of Pacific Bridge Contemporary Southeast Asian Art, a gallery and artist exchange program.