Big Talker Michael Smerconish on the Philly Barnes: “This is fundamentally wrong.”

Does Philly’s Big Talker, Michael Smerconish get the  “It’s never too late to do the right thing” award?  Not just yet. 

Great to see Michael’s Philadelphia Inquirer Op-ed on the Barnes and why he and the Mrs. think the plan to remove the Barnes art collection from its home is “fundamentally wrong”.  BUT in the same breath, he holds up the Parkway Barnes  as a great “cultural enhancement” to Philadelphia. We see a big conflict with that thinking. "This is so fabulous, but it's so wrong" is a mentality used to justify a lot of things that have bad consequences.

Michael’s position that the Barnes move is a net gain for Philadelphia is based on common assumptions that are not supported by objective evidence.

Here are some facts:

·    The Barnes is a Philadelphia cultural asset.  It just happens to be literally a stone’s throw from the border between the City and Lower Merion.  Are we so primitive that we have to physically drag the art collection over the boundary line to feel like it’s really Philadelphia’s?  If the City wants the wage tax from the hefty salaries they pay management, let the Director and senior staff stay in their Philadelphia office and let them kick in. 

·    The Barnes is extraordinary by any measure and unique in the world.  It is eligible for National Historic Landmark status and would most like qualify for UNESCO World Heritage designation.  Remove the art collection from the historic Merion complex and it cannot qualify for either of those esteemed honors. 

·    The Barnes can already have at least 144,000 people a year plus school students. That means there can be as many and possibly more people visiting Merion as are expected annually at the Parkway after the initial two-year “honeymoon”.  The current Board isn't motivated to make The Barnes in Merion more accessible because it would make it even harder to justify the move.

·     The Barnes is financially sustainable.  If not for the construction project, it would have a tiny annual budget that can be maintained with professional management and a Board of Trustees that wants to honor and support it instead of focusing on moving its art collection to Philadelphia.   

On the other hand, let’s ask what does Philadelphia need?

·    It needs a big cultural boost that is not controversial.  The Barnes was, is, and will remain controversial.  People’s memories are not as short as you think and The Barnes Affair has been a public relations fiasco for Philadelphia.

·    It needs to save money now.  The Parkway replica of the Barnes is slated to get almost $50 million in state taxpayer money.  Besides the fact that this project was supposed to be funded privately, families and institutions across Pennsylvania and especially in Philadelphia are in dire need of help.  Using tax funds to build a party house for galas while people go hungry is just sick.

·    It needs to use scarce financial resources well in the future.  A Parkway Barnes that is not widely supported and needs taxpayer funding to get built is very likely to need taxpayer support in the future.  All regional institutions dip into the same well for financial support, whether you’re talking about private philanthropy or taxpayer funds.  Dreaming that the well is going to grow bigger is a fantasy.

·     It needs a museum of contemporary art, like other major cities in the United States.  Albert Barnes collected the work of artists he knew.  Today’s artists currently have no major exhibition space in Philadelphia.  A museum for contemporary art would significantly raise the city’s profile and be an artistic endeavor that would win respect and boost tourism with something fresh, free from a boatload of controversy, and exciting. 

We can do better than to rip-off Albert Barnes’ art collection and besides, people deserve to have the legacy he left to the world, not a mutilated fake. It's a national treasure after all. We can do better than what TIME magazine’s art critic Richard Lacayo called “death by disembowelment”.   Let’s do something for art being created now.

So Michael, how about ramping things up a bit?  Like doing absolutely everything you can think of to help prevent the move?

                                                                                                                                                                                          

Robert Redford wonders what’s up at The Barnes Foundation

Robert Redford is perennially one of the people “most admired” by just about everyone. So when Robert Redford talks about the Barnes Foundation controversy with Philadelphia Inquirer’s movie critic Steve Rea, we’re all ears. Seems he visited The Barnes a few months ago and was impressed. And when he and Steve talked recently, Robert Redford asked, “Hey, are they moving the Barnes out of that mansion?” And he wonders, “Has that gone down smoothly, or has it been a rocky controversy?” Good questions!

We’re glad that Steve decided to write about it in “Robert Redford drops into the Barnes, and talks about art and ‘the uproar’.” Uproar is just what this controversy calls for.

Yes, a small group of Philadelphia elites are planning to move the Barnes art collection to Philadelphia from the “mansion” - the gallery building designed for the Barnes art collection in Merion. But then again they said it would be done by 2007, then 2009. Now they claim the collection will open in Philadelphia in 2012. Let’s say the situation inspires a certain amount of skepticism.

Has it gone smoothly? No! Not at all. The people trying to pull off what’s been called “the biggest art heist in history” laid out what they thought was a perfect plan. Wresting control of the Barnes art collection from the small and relatively powerless Lincoln University Board was not a huge challenge. After all, it was orchestrated – and paid for - by some of the country’s biggest philanthropies (Pew Charitable Trusts, the Annenberg Foundation, the Lenfest Foundation). And then there was the famous “good cop, bad cop” routine by two major political heavies (at the time) -- Ed Rendell and Attorney General Mike Fisher.

It should have been a piece of cake.

But instead, the 2004 Court decision permitting the move only added fuel to the fire of disapproval. The organized opposition -- never expected to last by the elites who planned the move -- just keeps getting bigger.

And now Friends of the Barnes Foundation are back in Court with their lawyer, Sam Stretton. Judge Ott is going to weigh a very compelling case and then he’ll decide what to do - based on the law. Hope you’ll stay tuned, Mr. Redford. As they say in Montana, “It behooves the little dog to win.”

Philadelphia Daily News Op/Ed on the Barnes Foundation

When you’re working on saving The Barnes, you just never know what’s going to be around the corner.

Along comes the beautiful Philadelphia Daily News with an Op-Ed piece by a man named Louis Lombardi that makes us smile big.

Louis grew up not far from the Barnes Foundation, in Bala Cynwyd, and he understands more than most that The Barnes should stay right where it is, in its ideal, historic setting in Merion. Because he is trained as a lawyer, he also gets that the previous legal process that ended with the Court giving permission for the move was seriously lacking. But don’t take our word for it. Louis does a great job explaining what went wrong and what can happen to set things right. Read his Op-Ed piece and see for yourself. Thanks, Louis!

Smart, slick lawyers for the Barnes Foundation tell it like it was (they wish).

Some lawyers are so darn smart, but sometimes they just don’t make sense to the rest of us. The lawyers for the Barnes Foundation recently filed Preliminary Objections to the Friends of the Barnes Petition. Their document tells Judge Ott what they think of The Friends' claims that new evidence shows that former Attorney General Michael Fisher (now a Federal judge) acted improperly when he threatened Lincoln University with the powers of his office. The Friends’ Petition also states that Judge Ott was misled about the Attorney General’s role and about the public money involved in the matter.
The Barnes Foundation’s lawyers have an answer for Judge Ott: there is nothing new here. They go on for pages and pages describing how the shenanigans with Lincoln University were known already from articles The Philadelphia Inquirer published in 2003 and 2004, as if the Judge is taking evidence from the newspaper instead of testimony presented in Court. But the other amazing thing is how the articles reinforce just how sleazy an operation was going on, especially a monumental article called “The Deal of the Art” that digs into the Lincoln/Barnes/Fisher/Rendell “negotiations” in delicious -- to some people excruciating -- detail. That article deserves some kind of journalism prize, really! But let’s not digress.
However brilliant, that article couldn’t bring the outrageous acts it described back to Judge Ott’s Courtroom. And anyway, it was published eight months after the hearings were over and more than five months after Judge Ott’s decision granting permission to change the Board and move the art collection to Philadelphia, based on the evidence presented in those hearings.
Those smart lawyers are on a different level, obviously, but we just don’t get this: On the one hand they say the Friends’ have no legal standing; only the Attorney General has it. On the other hand, they say that the Friends should have presented the information about the Lincoln/Barnes/Fisher/Rendell to the Court when “The Deal of the Art” was published. Uh, but they said only the Attorney General has standing, remember? What do we know?
Another weird thing is that the Barnes lawyers tell Judge Ott that the statements made in the documentary "The Art of the Steal" are nothing new. Like threatening Lincoln with the power of the Office of the Attorney General is just another day’s work. Here is what Attorney General Mike Fisher said in the movie:

“I don’t know that we were ever as direct as saying, “We can take this (the Barnes Foundation) away from you.”, because that would take a court to do that, but I had to explain to them that, you know, maybe the Attorney General’s office would have to take some action, involving them that might have to change the complexion of the board. And, whether I said that directly or I implied it, I think they finally got the message.”

Whaddaya think? Threat or negotiation?
All the Friends are saying is “Let’s ask Judge Ott.”