But the problem is linking the urgency of the issue, written about in wall text by the principal curator, Ian Baucom, and by the participants themselves.

Mr. Nahas, 38 years old, comes to the Neuberger from the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, where he served as principal curator for the permanent collection of 10,000 objects.

Alexander Farenholtz, the manager of "Documenta 9," attributes the popularity in part to German reunification and in part to the publicity generated by and surrounding Jan Hoet, the show's principal curator.

He frequently lectures and performs in Asia and is the principal curator for the 2013 Season of Cambodia festival in New York.

But this exhibition does reflects the vision of one man, Tom Phillips, 58, a painter and longtime student of African art, who was chosen as its principal curator.

The exhibition 's principal curator is Yoch's much younger cousin, James Yoch, a professor of English at the University of Oklahoma.

The principal curator of the original Asian American Jazz Festival held at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park for nearly two decades, he helped establish the genre.

"At times, he thought he was going mad painting the cathedral in such colors," said Gilles Grandjean, the Rouen museum's principal curator.

It hardly matters that Thelma Golden, the principal curator of "Black Male," is black because it is the institution that ultimately counts.

"Vodou is the paradigm for all African religions, and that's why it can't be belittled," said Donald J. Cosentino, head of the folklore and mythology program at U.C.L.A., and the show's principal curator.