Recommended Daily Allowance of Contemporary Art

Fellow District citizen and art blogger Tyler Green says that it's high time that the city's museums had a come-to-Jesus meeting.
They don't program contemporary art and, in a rare convergence of frictional unemployment, a number of them don't have the staff to show contemporary art. The Hirshhorn is without a director; the Corcoran Gallery of Art has no contemporary art curator; the National Gallery of Art has no contemporary art curator. (Two of these three things will change.)

In the next six months, we'll have some better sense of where the District stands on contemporary art. One thing that won't change, unfortunately, is the lack of a dedicated contemporary art space. The District needs a Kunsthalle, either a New Museum–esque space for temporary exhibitions or a dedicated contemporary extension to the National Gallery or the Smithsonian.

I know for a fact that there's institutional interest in re-purposing the Mies-designed and much-maligned Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library as a contemporary-art center. It would take a larger meeting of the minds than has assembled to date, but it's something that people think about. I was more supportive of the notion back when it looked as if the building itself might be in jeopardy because it houses a deficient library, but as the terror alert level on that threat has fallen, so has my desire to see the library turned into something other than the library. I still use it as a library, and I think it could be a great library.

And in any case, there is all of Northeast to consider! Warehouse space abounds; while gentrification has transformed some of the available area, it will be a long time coming before Trinidad gets the full Logan Circle treatment. To be sure, a space in the warehouse district in NE is far from the tourist circuit. You know—so what. The people who want to see, say, John Bock's Zero Hero will surely find the Red Line and hop on the train. The people who are merely curious will, too. (People actually like contemporary art, quite a lot. They'll find it.)

It would take the kind of corporate philanthropy that Olga Viso says this city doesn't see, and it would demand the sort of curatorial vision that the city can't seem to keep. The city might have the collector class to do it—certainly something like this doesn't happen without the support of people like the Ernsts, the Lerhmans, Lorie Peters Lauthier, and Mitch Rales. One snag: Mitch Rales—who happens to own his own contemporary art gallery—also serves on the board of the National Gallery, which has proven reluctant to invest in develop its contemporary art holdings. Then again, National Gallery trustees don't have to advocate for the National Gallery's interests, so perhaps he could work on another project. Given his investments and his stature, the most likely (and I think, the best) prescription is for a collection-free Kunsthalle.

Point of fact: There isn't a space in the District to show Bock's Zero Hero. (That's my example because it's the last rilly big installation piece I saw.)

UPDATE: Made some minor language edits.