Thursday, June 9
The National Gallery of Art is an institution of intriguing paradox. Founded by Andrew Mellon to educate a monolithic populace and to bestow contemporary ideas of good taste, Mellon’s offering was in fact a grand populist gesture, a true gift to the nation. What does it mean to be and to become a nation’s art museum during a time of immense global volatility and complexity? Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, explores the National Gallery’s unique but ever-changing purpose as the national art museum, and the challenges and opportunities of transformation along with the American nation.