If you don't do contemporary art, you don't have to do it

A food bank doesn't plant trees in city parks. The Red Cross doesn't build houses, Habitat for Humanity does. So why are non-contemporary art museums so intent on becoming contemporary art museums? 

In recent years art museums with virtually every imaginable focus have tried to make sure it does contemporary art. Each museum has its own reasons: The Met's confused installation of Damien Hirst's shark looked like a lame donor-grab because it was. Sometimes museums chase audience or hipster cachet.

In the last couple weeks I've noticed two particularly cringe-worthy examples. First up, at the end of next month the Getty Villa is showing a series of drawings sculpture by Jim Dine, the Clive Cussler of contemporary art. If Jim Dine didn't exist Pace Wildenstein would create him. (Oh, wait...) UPDATE: Correction here.

And over this past weekend the Phillips Collection, America's first museum of modern art, a museum with a spectacular 1890-1940ish collection, held a symposium on painting in the 21st century, an area in which the museum has virtually no art and no curatorial expertise. (Perhaps this is why three dealers ended up on the day's program.) I attended. Some of it.

My favorite part was a panel discussion on criticism and painting, during which Washington Post provocateur Blake Gopnik said that painters were responsible for what he considers to be the weak state of contemporary painting criticism. Call it the Gopnik Doctrine.

On its own that's a pretty remarkable assertion, but it was flat-out amusing given the 'keynote address' that preceded it. The keynoter was Suzanne Hudson, who opened her talk by discussing the alleged death of painting (I could have sworn I heard Whitesnake and Richard Marx songs in the background) and then quickly moved on to painting's alleged death within the context of today's art market, inadvertently using ten minutes of whiplash to fuse two decades of cliches.

The best part: Under the Gopnik Doctrine, painters are to blame for Hudson's talk.

All of which isn't to suggest that museums shouldn't be interested in contemporary issues, just that they should try to engage within the context of what they do best.