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May 20, 2005
Corcoran MAY scale back plans and NOT build yet another Frank Gehry wing
Sometimes financial crises are good things - like the Corcoran's. The Washington museum may not be able to afford a new wing by Frank Gehry. Museum-folk, repeat after me -- what is the core purpose of a museum: showing art, or showing off? Are you building a new wing for wall space? Look at the pictures provided and tell me that there was any particular reason to build the Gehry design.
The hope was that adding a wing by the celebrated Gehry -- whose undulating, titanium-skinned Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, had grabbed so much attention that people began referring to "the Bilbao effect" -- would turn the old, gray Corcoran, with its small but choice collection of primarily 19th-century American art, into a must-see destination. It would raise the museum's visibility and attendance while doubling, Levy said, as "maybe the greatest piece we have in our collection."If you can't afford a "museum as sculpture," perhaps you should refocus on the art you own.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at May 20, 2005 8:38 AM