Improving the DC scene: The NGA

Last week the Smithsonian released a report on the state of its art museums. Great, but what about the rest of DC in general? Each day this week I'll post an idea about something I think would improve the museum scene in America's No. 2 art museum city. Also: Today I'm on travel so I'll be auto-posting and off email.

Improving the National Gallery of Art's modern and contemporary art programs. At present, art from 1900 receives scant permanent collection space at the National Gallery, and many galleries (think Small French Paintingzzz) haven't been changed up in years. Barnett Newman's Stations of the Cross deserve a better space, and the ab-ex gallery is over-crowded. I could keep going.

Two recent developments provide the NGA an opportunity to think big when it comes to modern and contemporary art. Last year contemporary mega-collector Mitchell Rales joined the NGA's board. (Rales is also the vice-chairman of the Hirshhorn's board.) And sometime in the next six or so months the NGA will replace its top modern and contemporary curator, Jeffrey Weiss. (He's leaving to run Dia.) Rales is DC's biggest contemporary art collector, and second-place is a ways back.

Here's my idea: Four blocks from the National Gallery of Art sits the only Mies van der Rohe building in Washington. It's currently the District's central library, but District lawmakers have made it clear that they'd love to be out from under the building. I think that the NGA should make the District an offer for the building, and then turn it into the NGA's Contemporary Wing, a place to show art from World War II forward.

The District's Mies building could transform the NGA from a post-war-art backwater to one of the top venues in America, if not the world. And think of the curatorial talent the NGA could attract (and keep!) with that kind of space.