Suggesting some changes in DC: The Corcoran

What is the Corcoran Gallery of Art all about these days? Is it about researching and building its well-known collection of 19th-century American art? Is it about exploring how its modern and contemporary collections relate to its American collection?

No. Over the last year or two under new-ish director Paul Greenhalgh, the Corcoran's spin into confusion has continued. Curators have left and have been let go. The museum is launching a strange deaccessioning plan, strange because it's not remotely clear that the current museum administration has any vision at all for why it is deaccessioning or why it is doing it now.

For years now the Corcoran has careened back and forth between attractive collection installations, bizarre collection installations (the 'art of the banjo' comes to mind) and exhibitions that are more about flash and spectacle than anything else. Those shows have alternately been about celebrity and sheer size -- witness the way the museum lurched from a bizarre, out-of-place $2 million 'Modernism' extravaganza to a dreadful Annie Leibovitz exhibition. The museum has all but stopped adding anything resembling major works to its collection. The museum's longtime signature show, the Corcoran Biennial, has been suspended. Sure, the Corcoran has a fantastic photography collection, but recent photography exhibitions have included a pointless Ansel Adams rehash, a Richard Avedon (mostly) celebrity pix show, and Leibovitz.

It's not just the administration of the museum that's crumbled either -- long-deferred maintenance has rendered the Corcoran's building a leaky white (Georgia Cherokee marble) elephant. (Estimates on the work that needs to be done on the Corcoran vary widely, but it's easily in the tens of millions of dollars. Some work is underway.)

The Corcoran's mission, identity and even its reason for existing are no longer apparent. It's time for radical changes, changes that acknowledge that the museum as currently constituted has run out of gas. [Photo.]

The Corcoran's trustees should explore two courses of action: First, explore the possibility of a deal with mega-collector Alice Walton, a merger that would create 'Crystal Bridges at the Corcoran.'

Walton is one of the two biggest collectors of American art. Her focus that fits the Corcoran's collection. She's currently building Crystal Bridges, a Bentonville, Ark.-based museum scheduled to open in 2010.

I think that Walton and her team would be interested in having bricks-and-mortar presence outside Bentonville. (Whether they'd explore it before 2010 is another question.) Given the interest that both Walton and the Walton Family Foundation have in education, the marriage of the Corcoran and Crystal Bridges could work for everyone: Walton would gain a high-profile, White House almost-adjacent venue for her collection and her museum, she would be able to fully capitalize the Corcoran College of Art and she and her family could create a major center that could advocate for the importance of arts education in American schools. (The family foundation's education-focused grants have been mostly in other areas, but it has done some work around arts education.) Walton and the family foundation have the money to renovate the Corcoran's properties. The Corcoran collection would stay intact, and the new museum could emerge as a major center for American art. It would be a winning situation for everyone. [Photo.]

Second option: Close the Corcoran. Disperse its art to other area museums, especially the National Gallery of Art and the Hirshhorn. Offer what's left to other America museums. Also: Do it fast. The Corcoran's announced deaccessioning of 10 American paintings is a troubling indicator of how the museum sees itself. Any possible further art sales by the Corcoran should be stopped before they can start. Works given to the museum to be held in the public trust and works bought by the museum should, if possible and if wanted, remain in public collections.

So if the Corcoran closes, what to do with the school and the physical plant? American University or George Washington University could each absorb relevant parts of the college. The physical plant could go to the National Gallery of Art, which would have to renovate the buildings before installing its American art and photography collections. (The NGA desperately needs space. The NGA would still need to find new office space and possibly library space somewhere.)

Also, remarkably, the Corcoran still has some highly-regarded staff, especially its photography curators and an American art curator. Fortunately, in either of the above scenarios there are logical places for them to land: Either with the newly expanded Crystal Bridges or at the NGA (which is in the market for at least one photography curator anyway).