but who will clean the galleries?

MAN calls everyone out to talk about Jerry Saltz's article on MoMA.  Kriston helpfully breaks down the "nine ideas".  Me, I looked at it and thought Saltz had lost count, but nine there are.  The idea of a strict chronological presentation of the permanent collection, as opposed to the sort of thematic/national/school sort of thing, doesn't thrill me, but isn't a shocker, either.  I may be wrong, but it wasn't that long ago that Bouguereau and his kind reestablished a significant presence in many major museums' nineteenth century galleries.  Those artists inclusion there isn't precisely equivalent to what Saltz proposes, but it's in the same spirit: show everything and let the audience decide.  That approach can be okay, too, to a point.  But I can't say I've ever been really excited to visit a museum and find that they are showing me second-rate work in the interest of a strict historicism.

As for the rest of Saltz's suggestions, many of them sound fine.  I think most of them can be summed up thusly: the MoMA should do more.  I admit the idea that, even after the expansion, the Museum doesn't have adequate space to properly display its permanent collection worries me.  But perhaps I'm just a little MoMA weary when I say that Saltz forgot to ask for one thing: a pony.