But Where's the Art?
Museums dumb down culture with pop nostalgia shows
In general, curators seem to accept the postmodern ideology, and some take it more seriously than others. The Seattle Art Museum, which stuffs its European and American art out of the way on the top floor, is one of several museums that hired Fred Wilson, essentially to mock its permanent collection. Wilson is an "installation artist" and "museum deconstructor" who rummages around in permanent collections and stages displays to show how racist and intolerant museums are. The most political of the nation's current exhibitions is probably the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's "Made in California." Ostensibly a tribute to the state, the show is largely a sour depiction of California's founders and elites as pure villains.
As critic Roberta Smith wrote in the New York Times, "Today's museums are under attack from art-theory ideology on one side and commerce on the other." In many ways, their decline parallels what happened to the colleges: an ideological loss of faith in tradition and the classics accompanied by a loss of standards and a consumer-oriented dumbing down. Those allegedly villainous elites whose money largely supports these museums ought to pay more attention to what's happening.
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