Art: Chieftains, Flacks and Feathers

In Chicago, a package tour of Hawaiian art

Ever since the King Tut spectacular, corporations have been looking for glamour art shows to sponsor as public relations coups. The logic of this situation, pressed to its extreme, is that the museum curator becomes a mere appendage to the p.r. firm, which finds a "sexy" theme, sells it to the client, sets up the package and punches it into museum schedules. Such is the case with "Hawaii: The Royal Isles," a blockbuster without the block, which opened last week at the Art Institute of Chicago. Until 1983, as it trundles from one major...

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