The Art of the Steal / Barnes Foundation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWUqJEDQQnM

New doc on the Barnes collection and the decision to move it from outside of Philadelphia to a new building in the city.

I'd never heard about this before, but as I read more about it I don't think I'm going to come down on the side of the filmmakers. Most of the arguments I'm reading appear to revolve around Barnes's wishes and specious arguments that moving the collection is somehow doing harm to the art itself. I don't see why I should give a damn about the will of a guy who's been dead 60 years, and I don't see how making the art more publicly accessible is a bad thing.

The trailer hints at this being a plot by politicians to control the money, but I don't know what that's supposed to mean. Are they planning to sell off pieces? Who's supposedly profiting from this? What's Lincoln University losing out on?

w/t commenting on the movie or Milo's post, i'm amazed that this story has become national. when it broke in 2002, it was a strictly local/Philly-area story (or so i thought).

also, to do a cheap name-drop: Judge Ott (the PA Orphan's Court judge who approved the move) was one of my law school professors (he taught my Probate Procedures class). i have no opinion about his decision, however, since i haven't read it.

I read this guy regularly and he posts about it a lot:

http://theartlawblog.blogspot.com

The Barnes people sound like giant shitheads. Also a friend of mine grew up in the Merion area and says that the old location was kind of out of the way and hard to visit for most people, so he didn't really see the point of not moving it.

have always wanted to visit - don't you need to write for permission ahead of time or something?