Blake Gopnik - Race issue a two-edged sword for black contemporary artists - washingtonpost.com: They are called 'knowledge cards' -- a glossy picture on the front of each, some factoids to explain it on the back -- and museums sell them in packs of 48, on all kinds of basic subjects: nature, the American presidency, the great buildings of Washington. The shop at the Smithsonian American Art Museum has added a new basic subject to the roster: It now sells a pack that features great works by black artists. The classic names are there: Henry Ossawa Tanner, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett. There are also a few more recent figures: Sam Gilliam and Alma Thomas, both abstractionists from Washington, as well as the New York expressionist Frederick Brown. The cards 'celebrate the loves and passions of a people,' according to their packaging, and tacitly assert that art by African Americans has become a new field of cue-card-worthy knowledge.
