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In new home, Barnes' art risks a chilly fate

The Art of the Steal rails against the commercialization of art, yet repeatedly marvels at how many billions of dollars the Barnes Foundation is worth.

Inside the Barnes Foundation in Merion. The foundation itself - as well as its collection - is a work of art, in fact, if not in law, a national historic site. The film does not offer this insight. (Clem Murray / Staff Photographer)
Inside the Barnes Foundation in Merion. The foundation itself - as well as its collection - is a work of art, in fact, if not in law, a national historic site. The film does not offer this insight. (Clem Murray / Staff Photographer)Read more

The Art of the Steal rails against the commercialization of art, yet repeatedly marvels at how many billions of dollars the Barnes Foundation is worth.

The film bristles at the power and elitism of the Art Establishment. Opponents of the Barnes' move to the Parkway, however, manage to come across as just elitists of another stripe.

Talkers state their case as one that unfolded with the media asleep at the switch. Yet they repeatedly rely on facts uncovered by - the media. Without slow pans across newspaper clips, half the film's suspense would drain away.

Documentary-as-propaganda is like that. The aim here isn't balanced exposition so much as a sharp elevation of the viewer's blood pressure.

The Art of the Steal, for all its claims of speaking on behalf of Albert C. Barnes and his art, doesn't really address the thing that directly affects those of us not represented in the film: art lovers who don't have a dog in this fight. I would never rate one kind of art-viewing experience as superior to another, yet this film presumes a hierarchy of experiences - Barnes acolytes get moral authority, everyone else not so much.

It's too bad the film forgets to show how, when the Barnes moves from its cozy nest in Merion to the bright lights of the Parkway, something will be lost.

The closest anyone comes is when a former Barnes teacher calls it a "handmade thing in a machine-made world." A beautiful thought, but that's just part of it.

The truth is that we have no way of really knowing how people experience art, what they're thinking and feeling, what they take away. But here's what's clear to me after mulling scores of calls and e-mails from readers responding to a piece I wrote recently about the Philadelphia Orchestra losing touch with its audience: People judge the success of their contact with art by how the overall experience makes them feel.

Many trace the moment of losing contact with the orchestra to its move from the Academy of Music to the Kimmel Center. The Academy cradled them. It was the setting for a very personal communion. The Kimmel, physically and visually cold, is the setting for a corporate transaction. A mall.

The new Barnes risks the same dangers. It will no longer sprinkle its pixie dust of history and mystique. It will be about efficiency rather than authenticity. Visitors sense that sort of thing.

Philadelphia Orchestra listeners are still sensing it. Not all - some, like me, are happier to be hearing the orchestra in a more acoustically felicitous setting. But aficionados are not the majority, and the orchestra is paying the price for taking an experience people loved, in the glory of all its handmade flaws, and giving them something "better" yet somehow less satisfying.

Some cities are spending millions of dollars to create cultural experiences out of whole cloth (Los Angeles, Las Vegas). In Philadelphia, we have the real thing, and yet we keep presuming to know better.

The Art of the Steal has a job to do - to create a narrative, sketch out villains and heroes. Nothing makes the adrenaline flow like a good conspiracy (though the menacing music is more appropriate to an exposé of a military junta than the moving of an art collection).

The conspirators here are Ed Rendell, Pew Trusts president Rebecca Rimel, and other civic leaders who are portrayed as control demons rather than anything more complex - de facto city fathers and mothers, with overlapping interests, who are continually called upon to bring vitality to economically teetering Philadelphia.

Poor Ray Perelman. The philanthropist and former Philadelphia Museum of Art board chair is darkly drawn as a one-man ground zero - just for being the person who gave Rendell the idea of a downtown Barnes. Wisely, I think, he declined to be interviewed.

Actually, an equal crime, if you want to run with the crime metaphor, is that Rendell is better at building buildings than he has been at ensuring their success after he cuts the ribbon on opening day. The Kimmel Center, a pet project of Rendell and his wife, Marjorie O. Rendell, marks a decade of existence at the end of next year - and it's still unclear that it has the will to be a full-fledged arts center, much less a public square.

Faced with poor ticket sales, Kimmel leaders recently acknowledged that it has become too expensive for its own resident companies. To help reduce rents, it cut the budget, reduced offerings, and hopes to rent itself out more to corporate giants such as Live Nation.

Another Rendell signature, the National Constitution Center, "dedicated to increasing public understanding of the U.S. Constitution and the ideas and values it represents," recently turned to a Princess Diana show to fill the building. It featured, among other items, "28 dresses, suits, and gowns designed by Versace, Valentino, Chanel, and Azagury, among others," as well as the "musical score and handwritten lyrics of the Elton John/Bernie Taupin song 'Candle in the Wind.' "

The arrival of new or remade arts groups, undercapitalized with inadequate endowment, means more hungry players in a city of limited philanthropic sources. The needs of the new Barnes are enormous, ongoing, and promise to escalate: $150 million for construction, $50 million for endowment (as a start), a new annual-giving program - all to support an operating budget more than double its current $5.5 million.

The grinning face of Stephanie Naidoff, Mayor John Street's commerce director who previously ran the Kimmel Center, is the opening shot of the The Art of the Steal as she announces the Barnes' move downtown. The film doesn't mention it, but it was Naidoff who predicted the Kimmel would illustrate the "rising tide" theory - that is, there would be more need, and so more donors would come forward to meet that need.

With the Philadelphia Orchestra now laboring to avoid bankruptcy, the Kimmel cutting back, and other arts groups consolidating their seasons, the tide is rising. Whether it floats all boats, or ends up sinking a few, is suddenly an open question.