The museum as PR firm

I receive lots of press releases, dozens a day. Many are from museums. Many more are from galleries. They're never from both -- until now.

The strange release (which is not online) was from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the folks who bring you the de Young and the Legion of Honor. It announced an upcoming de Young exhibition of surrealist Enrico Donati and included this paragraph:

Concurrent with The Surreal World of Enrico Donati at the de Young is a retrospective of Donati's work at Weinstein Gallery through August 30, 2007. The retrospective includes paintings from the artist's entire oeuvre, spanning seven decades from the 1940s through the present. "I can honestly say that working so closely with the de Young Museum to give Enrico dual exhibitions that he will attend - at age 98 - is the honor of a lifetime," says Rowland Weinstein, president of Weinstein Gallery. Weinstein Gallery is located at 301 Geary Street, San Francisco, CA 94102; 415.362.XXXX open seven days a week from 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.

Why is San Francisco's most distinguished museum shilling for a commercial gallery show?! I guess if director John Buchanan doesn't mind turning over the City of San Francisco's galleries to a commercial, for-profit, scholarship-free, making-a-mockery-of-art-museum-integrity exhibition such as Philip Anschutz's King Tut, why not turn your museum's communications operation into the marketing department for a commercial enterprises too?