It’s time for September art news. I for one am sick of reading about stunts and lawsuits over whether or not a certain middling, mostly middlebrow music hall in that midsize, widely reviled city — the Swamp — can be called the Trump Kennedy Center. Why in the world is President Trump involved in it? It’s no Palais Garnier. He can’t possibly care to bask in JFK’s afterglow. Camelot’s nearly as old as I am and far more moth-eaten.
I’m a stickler for ethics in museums, so why not in the performing arts? The Kennedy Center is a nonprofit, a messy one since the government owns the building and subsidizes it. Most of the board is appointed by the president, so there’s no trustee recruitment-board committee and trustees aren’t picked on the basis of their capacity and interest. That’s a terrible arrangement and a typical public-private partnership morass, as is the Smithsonian. It’s still a nonprofit. How can a board chaired by President Trump and mostly appointed by President Trump name the building after President Trump? Who’ll sign the naming contract on behalf of the Kennedy Center? Trump will be on both sides of the table. Isn’t this self-dealing?
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