Coo-Coo at the Corcoran

Last week, Tyler Green at Modern Art Notes was writing about the latest plan from the Corcoran Gallery of Art to build its outrageous and ultimately unnecessary Frank Gehry addition. The museum has reportedly asked the District of Columbia for $40 million and has a plan to find that money in a budget that is so strapped for cash that the already deplorable public school system is suffering further cuts. Inexplicably, Mayor Anthony Williams supports the plan. As you know, I am all for government sponsorship of the arts (see the Ionarts Proposal), but this is something that the District of Columbia should not even consider paying for unless its fiscal house were in order. In fact, the citizens of the District of Columbia would probably be much better off if 85% of college-bound graduates of the public schools here did not require an average of two years of remedial education before they can take undergraduate courses (seriously, as reported by the University of the District of Columbia) than if we paid Frank Gehry to build an addition to the Corcoran. Keeping some shred of arts education in the D.C. public schools might also be a better way to spend $40 million.

I repeat my suggestion (posted back on March 26) that the Corcoran is missing a real opportunity to find the perfect corporate sponsor for this project. I still think that a certain company's logo would fit so perfectly with Gehry's plan (as imagined here).