The Nice New Norton Simon

To this generation‘s museum builders, I suspect, art lovers are what the left has been to the Clinton White House: voters you can count on to show up anyway. It’s the voters in the middle they want to attract. This is fine, even welcome, in theory, but as anyone who has visited a packed art exhibition knows, it‘s not much fun trying to look at a painting when 20 people are standing in front of you. (Critics and editorial writers don’t have to do this, of course; they can go to private viewings.) There is also something profoundly depressing about being at a museum crammed with people who have been cajoled into going there for reasons other than art. After all, people don‘t go to basketball games to look at the arena.

The new Norton Simon is hardly in the same league as the Guggenheims and Gettys, but it’s after a piece of the action. To wit, the museum‘s ad pitch: “Now, the setting is a masterpiece as well.” Campbell, to her credit, is aware of the dangers of overcrowding. She puts the museum’s current annual attendance rate at 150,000, and expects it will rise to 200,000 or even 250,000 as a result of the redesign and increased publicity. But, she notes, the museum will be open another day each week to accommodate the extra crowds, and will also stay open on Friday evenings. “We hope attendance will increase without impacting one‘s pleasure in the visit,” she told me. “I don’t ever want us to be in a position where people are uncomfortable or have to stand in line to see something. I don‘t see that as a worthwhile experience, and I don’t imagine it will happen.”

Let‘s hope she’s right.

Admission to the Norton Simon is free through October 10.