Not about Art Criticism

David Carrier writes on page 158, that the critic should see and write about relationships between contemporary art and historical art. As a writer, how do you avoid making the same mistakes as the Whitney did with Picasso and the African masks?
Museums are structured with, "Artifacts from Africa, China, India, and pre-Columbian America become art alongside the paintings and sculpture of Europe and contemporary art."
Is this the same problem that McEvilley wrote about?