Just received the Corcoran's extended show schedule. Next year includes the 2005 Biennial, which is being curated now by Dr. Jonathan Binstock. He is the Corcoran's Curator for Contemporary Art.

The Biennial used to be the only Biennial left in the country which was all about painting. This made it stand out; however, Binstock's predecessor was one of those who seemed to agree with the "painting is dead" crowd and "expanded" the Biennial to include everything else that goes for art these days. In my opinion, that vastly diluted the uniqueness of the Biennial.

Anyway, Binstock has already established a reputation as a curator who actually goes to gallery openings and visits artists' studios, etc. This is a great improvement over his predecessor.

He included one area artist in the last Corcoran Biennial (and the first that he curated), and we all certainly hope that he continues to expand on that. One of the biggest complaints that gallerists and area artists have, is the fact that historically a lot of our area museum curators have ignored their own back garden, something I discussed on air the last time I was a guest at the Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU.