The name of the Department of African, Oceanic, and New World Cultures reflects the fact that art museums are thoroughly rooted in European traditions of art making and aesthetics. In the 19th century, art museums were conceived to house artistic productions derived from these "fine arts" traditions and to instruct the public about European "high culture." Objects made by African woodcarvers or Native American bead workers were completely excluded from many art museums in the past because they did not fit the European-based definitions of art. While this was not true of the DIA, whose collection includes important examples of these "non-western" cultures acquired early in its history, the art of these geographically and socially disparate cultures is still lumped together in one department.

In the late 20th century, the understanding of how "art" is defined has become a culturally relative issue, as each culture possesses its separate traditions of creativity and visual meaning. The objects displayed in the galleries of this department ask the visitor to leave behind any Eurocentric conceptions about "art" and try on a different culture's point of view.

"Art" as customarily experienced in a museum is an object that is isolated and singled out for aesthetic contemplation. On the other hand, the Camel Saddle made by the Tuareg people of Saharan Africa would have been experienced by its owner as a useful piece of equipment, as well as a satisfyingly decorated one. The saddle was lavished with ornament because the transportation camels offered was fundamental to the Tuareg way of life as traders and organizers of caravans. When the saddle is displayed in an art museum, it is treated as if it were art in the European tradition. The object then has a foot in both worlds: the world of the Tuareg where camel saddles are lavishly decorated, and the world of the art museum, where special categories of objects function in the cultural role of "art."

On a basic level, objects allow us to enter into another world. As a purely visual experience, we can appreciate how the arcs of the two elongated faces on the ends of the Easter Island Gorget echo the crescent of the gorget itself. The shape of this ornament is based upon the most precious material recognized by Easter Islanders: the milky-white tooth of a sperm whale. These "jewels" were handed down from father to son, and with each generation they accumulated the power, or mana, of the ancestor. The crescent faces on the ends of the gorget are jewels that have become ancestors, their heads conforming to that treasured shape. The art of African, Oceanic, and New World Cultures pose a special challenge to the museum visitor: to see the collections as objects of visual delight, but then to learn something of the different cultural traditions that informed the creation of the objects.