Art: What is art's place in the picture?

The Brooklyn Museum owns some of America's finest collections of Egyptian and American art, among others, yet it has been sharply criticized in recent years for mounting pop-culture exhibitions such as "Star Wars," "Hip-Hop Nation," and "Who Shot Rock and Roll?"

These attractions obviously were intended to bring in younger visitors whose experience of high art might be limited or nonexistent. Yet last year, the Times reported, the museum's attendance dropped 23 percent from the year before.

The Michener and Allentown museums have built solid reputations for exhibitions that are enlightening and appealing without pandering, so I don't expect either to carry the museum-as-community-center concept to extremes.

As for the Barnes Foundation, who can say what form it will take when it becomes Just Another Museum in 2012? It certainly will be under considerable pressure to make money so it won't fall into deficit again.

The Barnes hasn't been able to popularize in Merion, but by adding a special exhibitions space it will have some latitude to do so in its new quarters.

One presumes, too, that the atrium linking the two halves of the building will come to function like the Art Museum's Great Stair Hall, as a public events venue.

It's difficult to imagine the no-nonsense, art-is-everything Barnes Foundation of today becoming "a new community center," but economic pressure could push it in that direction.

The Barnes is gambling that its "museum mile" location will attract more tourists and other art lovers, who, in more comfortable and less intimidating surroundings, will usher in a new era of prosperity. It might even attract customers who don't care beans for art but just like to hang out in classy surroundings.

edwardsozanski.