“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

The same topsy turvy principle seems to apply at the National Museum of Kenya which has billed a new exhibition as being by “Two African Artistic Geniuses.”

They are Elkana Ongesa and Expedito Mwebe Kibbula — two competent sculptors giving pleasure to many whose pieces attract admiration and are well worth a look. But geniuses?

What would the blurb writer from NMK tell us if he or she stood before a Michelangelo? Possibly, to continue to dwell with that writer in the land of the elves and the fairies, he or she would go into a rapid spin and then explode, like Rumpelstiltskin.

There are African art geniuses, of course. Many of them. Look at the reliquary carvings of the Fang and the Kota from Gabon for instance or, nearer home, certain fetish stools of the Hemba and the Luba from eastern DR Congo.

Made by craftsmen largely unknown to us but famous among their clients, their carvings have a purity of line and volumetric strength, coupled with spiritual intensity, that lifts them beyond even the extraordinary. Intended for votive use they are among the finest sculptures ever made. Works of true genius.

Museums have a need to entice visitors to their exhibitions and a little exaggeration has always helped to sell a ticket or two. But while that may be fine (if ultimately self-defeating) for a private enterprise, a state-owned museum surely has a responsibility to be authoritative and therefore measured in its claims.

If we cannot find the truth in a museum, where is it to be found? Hyperbole will lead only to skewed values.

For if the ordinary is lauded as first class and the merry alchemy of turning base metal into gold is allowed to continue, any sense of hierarchal worth goes through the window; we have no standards to hang onto; no way of exercising reasonable judgements — and the result is an overall diminution of appreciation and scholarship.

All of which seems a little hard on Messrs Ongesa and Kibbula. After all, it is not their fault as honest artists plying their trade that they have been oversold as geniuses.

Their stone sculptures, paintings, carved panels and steel assemblages can be seen in the pioneers’ room of the Nairobi Gallery at the old PC’s office next to Nyayo House in Nairobi. Both artists trained at Makerere and their work is thoroughly professional.

The sad thing is that the best piece by far on show is by neither of the two. It is an 18cm wide bowl carved by Nelson Ongesa, Elkana’s uncle and himself a pioneer among the soapstone carving brethren of Kisii. Delicate, calm and seemingly timeless with its simple design of interlocked faces, it is a delight.

It really should not have been included in this exhibition because by comparison Elkana Ongesa’s studies of elephants appear clumsy, and Kibbula’s much vaunted wooden panels — offered at around $83,000 (Ksh7.5 million) apiece if you please — although crisply carved, look over complicated and confusing in their detail.

One small Ongesa took the eye. It is called Bui Bui Woman No 2 and is of a lightly carved piece of black basalt in which the shape of the stone is allowed to dictate the subject and form. It is a great thing to know when to do little.

Ongessa has huge granite carvings outside the Unesco headquarters in Paris and the UN building in New York; Kibbula’s intricate panels and steel assemblages decorate hotels and churches throughout East Africa, while his stone carving Universal Couple stands sentinel in Nairobi City Park.

Here we have two sculptors who have tasted success, who have delighted many people and whose work commands high prices. They have done well and deserve to be better served by some proper sense of proportion.

And now, there is news from the Rialto.

Bravely resisting the urge to chuck the organisers of the Venice Biennale into one of their own sludgy canals, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Sports, Culture and the Arts, Hassan Wario Arero, has finally listened to the arts lobby and distanced his country from its alleged pavilion at the festival.

It contains artwork by one expat Kenyan, an Italian with Kenyan citizenship and five Chinese. Now Wario has issued a statement that he has investigated the matter and found that in 2003 and 2013 the Italian Armando Tanzini and his team, “presented themselves wrongfully and repeatedly as Kenya’s official representatives.”

Actually it seems to have happened this year as well but all is not lost. For Wario adds that he and others in government are determined, “to ensure that no such misrepresentation of Kenyan artists occurs in the future.”

Well, that is very welcome news and good for him, although a few questions do remain…. Why has it taken the government 12 years to act on this?

What will happen to this year’s unrepresentative Kenya entry, given that the festival does not officially begin until next month?

What will now happen to Tanzini and his team, condemned in the ministerial statement for “acts of impersonation” — surely misrepresenting a country is a serious matter — and, with Wario’s good intentions entirely accepted, how much hard cash is his department setting aside to put together a truly representative pavilion next time around?

Frank Whalley runs Lenga Juu, a fine arts and media consultancy based in Nairobi