February 12, 1993

NOT for the first time, Maya Lin walks a calm path through an ideological minefield. A decade ago, Ms. Lin's design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington invited a divided nation to share tears of reconciliation. At the Museum for African Art, which opens tomorrow in SoHo, Ms. Lin traverses even bumpier cultural terrain. How to create a common ground within a space dedicated to cultural difference? How to devise a setting for works of art that are non-Western in origin but that are, at the same time, an important part of the black American heritage and therefore integral to the West's own cultural evolution? Ms. Lin's response to this challenge is understated: within a flowing sequence of galleries, unfolding on two floors, she uses subtle gradations of color to suggest a passage through time as well as space. Her design will not settle the controversies that have erupted in recent years over the display of non-Western art in Western settings. The debate over multi-culturalism continues, and even those who support an ideal of pluralistic culture may find their minds wrenched apart by its disorienting implications.

Lighted letters still shout this old factory city's historic boast from a bridge over the Delaware River: "Trenton Makes, The World Takes." But these days Trenton, like most of the other big, once-rich cities in the region, is the taker, not the maker, when it comes to paying for its municipal budget. As investment has fled to the suburbs or to more newly developed parts of the country, cities have begun relying less on their own tax receipts and more on tax revenue raised in the suburbs and redirected as state aid. (New York City, helped by an economic rebound in the 1980's, became an exception to the trend.) At the same time, outside aid is making up an ever smaller part of the budgets of the newer metropolitan areas that have grown up at former suburban crossroads.

When Christopher G. Kibuuka moved to South Africa in 1982, his destination was regarded throughout Africa as a hell invented by whites for blacks. To Dr. Kibuuka, a black gynecologist from Uganda, hell was relative. His own country had been laid waste by eight years under a savage despot named Idi Amin, whose secret police sometimes bashed in the heads of suspected enemies with sledge hammers. South Africa looked pretty good.

Most agency executives would drive to the ends of the earth for a chance to work on even a single automotive account. Now, a little-known shop is riding off with its second one. BMW of North America Inc. said yesterday that it had selected Mullen Advertising Inc., based in the Boston suburb of Wenham, Mass., to handle the creative portion of its estimated $80 million to $85 million account. BMW, one of the world's most coveted automotive accounts, will park next to another prestigious nameplate in Mullen's garage: Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Inc. of Lyndhurst, N.J., the American importer of Rolls-Royces and Bentleys from Britain.

WOODY ALLEN was right about relationships, at least when (as Alvy Singer in "Annie Hall") he compared them to sharks: either they keep moving forward, or what you have on your hands is a dead shark. Regular romantic outings help keep your shark in good shape. The approach of Valentine's Day is, of course, what brings the subject to mind, V-Day being one of the obligatory days of romantic observation (along with birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas and New Year's Eve) in this culture.