Requiem for a Museum

Over the past week, courts in Pennsylvania have ruled that the Barnes Foundation may vacate their current location in suburban Marion and move instead to "Museum Row" in downtown Philadelphia. While this may not ring any bells for the general public, I greeted the news with sadness.

In case you are unfamiliar, the Barnes Foundation is/was a public art school founded by Alfred Barnes early in the last century. Barnes believed in the educational value of viewing fine art. So after amassing one of the finest Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and early Modernist art in America, he organized his home into a personal museum/art educational venue. His interesting, if sometimes quirky, combination of objects (such as traditional Amish ironwork next to African masks next to Cubist Picasso) was designed to engender discussion amongst visitors. Notoriously anti-art establishment, he left control of the museum after his death to Howard University with the stipulation that the arrangements of the works could never be changed. Unfortunately, the current board has decided to break his will once and for all and have now been given permission to move the entire collection into a new building near the other art institutions of Philadelphia.

While this will certainly cause the foundation to sit on more secure financial grounds, I mourn the loss of the original space and viewing experience. Since I came through the fine arts university system, one would have to define me as a product of the "art establishment." And I have to admit that I approached my first (and now looks like only) visit to the Barnes Foundation with skepticism - I mean, how important can artwork placement be, anyways? I thought it more likely that Barnes was a coot. However, I found the visit to the Foundation a moving experience, both because of the quality of much of the work and the placement of the work next to each other. One of my favorite memories was viewing two Picasso portraits as they flanked a small collection of African sculptures; never had the connection between early Cubist works and traditional African art been clearer in my mind. While I still believe Barnes might have had a screw or two loose (there are many interesting biographies available on him), I cannot deny the fact that his museum wields power over the viewer, a power often found lacking in more "traditional" art institutions. Thus I am quite saddened that the current Barnes board has gone the easy (and presumably more profitable route) of moving the art at the expense of the Barnes experience instead of finding a way to preserve both the art and it's context.