An Odd Trend In The Arts
Alan Fern, director of the Portrait Gallery, paused in the three-story-high library and said: �It is one of the great cast-iron rooms in America. It would be great as a reception room, for dinners, for symposiums.�
The above quote jumped out of an August 28, 1999 New York Times article by Irvin Molotsky concerning the closing of the National Museum of American Art and National Portrait Gallery for three years of renovations.
I had recently visited the museum, toured the collections, and used the library for research. The building was in excellent condition as of a few weeks ago. There is plenty of room in the existing galleries for additional artwork. The library was a genuine pleasure to use, not crowded by throngs of tourists, and with a wonderful collection of books, manuscripts and electronic databases.
So why is the Smithsonian shutting it down for three years and sending the collection on tour? The reasons given in the New York Times article are unconvincing, namely, to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, to clear the skylights, and to build a new entrance. Anyone who has visited the museum would realize that all of the above could be undertaken in a modest fashion while the museum and library remain open to the public.
Indeed, one could argue that a dedicated museum director would seek to keep his institution open and available to the public under any and all conditions. Any work that needed to be done could be scheduled in as unobtrusive a manner as possible, if public service were the goal.
But the shutdown of the National Museum of American Art and the conversion of its majestic library into a function room is part of an odd trend in the arts, one that is international in scope, where established public institutions obtain massive public "investment" -- and then seal themselves off from the public, transforming magnificent public spaces into private function rooms, offices for administrators, or facilities for an inner circle of well-connected insiders.
Those who run public institutions have seemingly developed a "public be damned" attitude.
Perhaps the most dramatic example can be found at London's Royal Opera House.
Just a few years ago, the institution perhaps best-known to the general public as the venue for Professor Henry Higgins' first encounter with Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady received millions of pounds from England's national lottery, a gambling venture established to support the arts and other worthwhile causes. When this bonus removed the pressure to generate box-office revenue, the Royal Opera promptly closed for "three years of renovations" (the same span as the National Museum of American Art and National Portrait Gallery are planning).
Closing down for three years and sending the company on tour proved to be a mistake.
A television documentary series exposed the greed and incompetence of the Opera's leadership. The British conducted official investigations of the lottery and the Opera which have led to the resignation of the Opera's management -- and the hiring of a business-oriented American, for the first time in history, to try and revive the collapsed institution.
But the Royal Opera was just doing what others had done elsewhere Until they paid the consequences, it is doubtful that the British realized they had started down the wrong road. Perhaps they even thought they were aping the Americans.
For earlier in Washington, DC, the Library of Congress likewise had closed its main entrance for several years of "renovation." After the work was completed, and the reading room reopened, the public discovered that the main entrance would remain permanently closed. (Curiously, after millions in renovation expenditures, the roof continued to leak).
Patrons of the library today need to come and go from a small back door, behind the parking lot and next to the loading dock, after passing through metal detectors and the suspicious stares of uniformed guards. Instead of sweeping up the grand staircase past inspiring murals, visitors squeeze by parked cars to avoid dumpsters. The experience is not unlike entering a maximum security prison.
The grand public space of the Library is now used as a reception room, rented out for dinners and special occasions. It is little more than a vast catering hall.
But such things don't happen only in London and Washington.
Not long ago, the New York Public Library decided to move its crculating collection from the magnificent temple of learning on 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue into the shell of a bankrupt department store. While the research collection remains in place, portions of the building formerly available to everyone are now off-limits.
The palatial library rooms with vaulted ceilings have been transformed into a "humanities study center," or �writers rooms� and are now reserved for a handful of professors and intellectuals selected by the library, who receive fellowships and office space.
Unfortunately, this exclusionary trend -- where what was built for the general public has been turned over to private interests -- is not restricted to the nation's capital or financial center.
On a visit to Raleigh, North Carolina, I dropped in on a history museum, only to discover that almost two floors of the four-story structure were occupied by offices, conference rooms, and various administrative or clerical functions.
Likewise, the new Getty Center in Los Angeles has huge "administration" and "study" buildings that flank what appear to be comparatively small art galleries on a very large campus.
It is a shame that the Smithsonian has become part of this trend.
One of the delights of the old National Museum of American Art and National Portrait Gallery was the ability to go directly from a painting to the library to research the history and meaning of the work, and vice-versa. The nineteenth-century atmosphere in the library was inspiring, and the location of the library in close proximity to the collection made it both pragmatically and aesthetically pleasing.
According to newspaper accounts, the museum plans to move the library to a new administration building at another location, denying patrons the opportunity for a chance cross-fertilization, or inspiration, in the interface between research and apprehension.
It seems that the Smithsonian may have so much money, that like the Royal Opera, it has lost sight of the purpose of museums. Named after the muses, they exist to inspire those living in the present with the greatness of the past. Public museums were likewise to be available to ordinary citizens to provide them with the experiences only aristocrats or wealthy private collectors might enjoy.
Sadly, it appears that administrators like Allen Fern would rather they serve as some sort of themed banquet hall.
One can only hope that some countervailing trend soon makes its appearance, and restores to the general public the grand and inspiring public spaces and amenities it once could enjoy.
