The Barnes Is Dead

You can move the art of the Barnes Collection, writes Edward Sozanski. But its soul will not be transported. “The uniquely idiosyncratic art school and gallery that had been one of the wonders of the American cultural landscape since the mid-1920s has been ruled officially dead. Whatever replaces it somewhere along Benjamin Franklin Parkway will be something different, perhaps better, but most likely not. Like the London Bridge that an American developer moved to the Arizona desert, the new Barnes will be a simulacrum at best, ripped from its historical context and set down where it will become just another “attraction” on Philadelphia’s developing cultural midway.”