A Bold Break With Its Past

"Modernism" is a long-term investment. "You don't repair an institution like this instantly. . . . I always saw this project as a five-year project. There are no quick answers when an institution gets itself into a hole this deep."

The Victoria and Albert was also going through hard times when Greenhalgh was there in the 1990s. Yearly attendance had dropped to 800,000 and politicians talked of closing the place down. Part of its recovery since then -- to 2.3 million visitors last year -- has depended on the popular success of a series of mega-shows such as "Modernism," which Greenhalgh had a hand in launching. If such shows could save the V&A, says Greenhalgh, couldn't "Modernism" be the Corcoran's savior?

At least in theory, design is a hot topic and a hot commodity these days. What could be more current, Greenhalgh says, than the notion that the challenges of modern life can be approached through design -- which is the notion at the very heart of "Modernism"?

And the sheer range of its topics and objects, he says, from health equipment to automotive gear to classic paintings by Picasso and Mondrian, should also make sure the exhibition has the broadest possible fan base "beyond the classic fine-arts audience."

You'll want to see it "whether you like tubular steel furniture or not," says Greenhalgh.

The reasoning makes sense, but it isn't a sure thing.

The public as a whole may be warming to modern design, but they like to shop for it, at Ikea or Design Within Reach. It's not necessarily what they go to a museum for.

It's also not clear that even the most eager modernistas are keen on studying the sociological causes and utopian ideologies behind a favorite 1930s chair. That historical and intellectual context is very much the focus of "Modernism," whose explanations and historical documents -- a case with first editions of Thomas More's "Utopia," Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" and George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four," is due to get a room all to itself -- may dilute the impact of its stunning objects.

There's also the fact that Washington's museum crowd is strange: A big chunk of it is made up of tourists here just to visit the nation's capital and spend time on the Mall. They tend to wander into the Mall's famous museums -- the National Gallery, the great Smithsonian buildings -- because they're there, because they've heard of them and because they're free. They don't necessarily study a list of exhibitions to decide where they'll head next. The Corcoran may be too far off the standard tourist beat, and too far off the radar as an institution, for any single show to change such ingrained habits.

Unless "Modernism" comes to stand for something the Corcoran is most fundamentally about, it won't change the institution's long-term prospects.

Yet the show wasn't chosen because modernism was the topic best suited to the Corcoran's mission -- to its past or to a vision of its future or even to its collection. "Modernism" is at the Corcoran because Greenhalgh, the new director, needed a major exhibition that would turn a spotlight on his institution, ASAP. "Modernism" happened to be out there, the right show at the right time. (Greenhalgh says he considered half a dozen touring exhibitions that might fit the bill, including one on Frida Kahlo.) Though a show as prestigious and complex as "Modernism" might normally have been out of reach for the troubled Corcoran, Greenhalgh's connections at the V&A let him make a bid for it, and win.

If it proves a popular success, Greenhalgh will still have to answer the question he says is likely to be asked by a typical viewer: "That was a really great show. I wonder why they did it." He'll need to define a future beyond "Modernism" that makes sense of what the Corcoran is all about.

Greenhalgh talks of using "Modernism" to launch a slight shift in emphasis toward design, his own first love and specialty -- and a niche not filled by any other Washington museum. (Greenhalgh says that if he decides to continue staging the Corcoran's biennial survey shows-- a tradition that turns 100 this year but is currently on hold -- he will almost certainly expand their scope beyond fine art.)

Greenhalgh also talks of working at the highest levels of scholarship and curating, to host and launch "internationally important, world-class" exhibitions.

"I am not a populist," he says, and insists that his Corcoran will never do a lightweight show just because it might attract crowds. "This institution is not going to be driven by blockbusters."

But looking at the roster of the Corcoran's biggest upcoming shows, that seems just where the place is heading, in the near term at least. Next fall, the museum will be hosting the latest spread of Leibovitz photos (on tour from the Brooklyn Museum, another troubled institution with quality-control issues -- critics have lambasted its "Star Wars" and hip-hop shows). That will overlap with one of a pile of Ansel Adams exhibitions that have been touring the country since the popular photographer's death -- this one pulled from a single private collection by curators at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

The one exhibition idea that might really make the Corcoran matter again is to go before the Corcoran's board for approval someday soon. Dreamed up by Greenhalgh when he was still at the V&A, it will be a kind of sequel to "Modernism." It will look at what architects and artists and designers have been up to in the last few decades in response to the modern movement and maybe even in opposition to it. "Postmodernism" promises to make "Modernism" -- and modernism, the movement -- seem like child's play. If postmodern art and design are about anything, they are about avoiding simple labels and tidy story lines and clear messages, or even attractive objects. That's the mess -- an important, fertile, sometimes even inspiring mess -- the Corcoran will be trying to corral.

If it succeeds, and produces a show other museums are eager to take -- the V&A is already collaborating on planning-- the Corcoran will be able to breathe easy. It will have joined the big leagues.

"Modernism" is supposed to bring a bright future to the Corcoran -- modernism's usual promise. "Postmodernism" just might bring it an important present.