There was a story in the Post a few days ago about a Latino Museum on the National Mall.

Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) introduced the bill to set up a commission to study the idea's feasibility. The museum would be based in Washington, around the National Mall and "might be under the umbrella of the Smithsonian Institution."

According to the story by Jacqueline Trescott, "This is one issue that unites our community," said Raul Yzaguirre, the president of the National Council of La Raza.

Let me be the first one to disagree and state for the record that this is one of the worst, most divisive ideas to have come out of anyone's minds in years.

Why have a separate, segregated museum for Latinos? Why not get more Latinos in the national museums, period.

I note also, the use of the word "Latino" as opposed to the now almost not PC term - "Hispanic." Otherwise we'd have to take all the Picassos, and Dalis, and Miros, and Goyas and Velazquezs out of the mainstream museums and put them in a "Hispanic" museum.... thank God for that.

As it is now, we'll have to take all the Wifredo Lams, Roberto Mattas, Frida Kahlos, etc. out of the other museums and put them in the "Latino Museum."

But ooops! the Frida Kahlo in the DC area is already in a segregated museum - in this case segregated by sex.

The semantic/ethnic/racial debate about Latino or Hispanic is a good, if somewhat silly one.

Anyway... Latino is (I think) now associated with people of Latin American ancestry... it apparently includes the millions of Central and South Americans of pure Native American blood (many of who do not even speak Spanish), and the millions of South Americans of Italian, German, Jewish, Middle Eastern and Japanese ancestry. It also includes the millions of Latin Americans of African ancestry.

It doesn't include Spaniards and Portuguese people.... you Europeans are out!

According to the Post, "Felix Sanchez, the chairman of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, said, "The museum is really a long-overdue concept. There is a void of presenting in one location a more in-depth representation of the culture and its presence in the mainstream of American consciousness."

Mr. Sanchez: There is no such thing as a single "Latino culture." In fact, I submit that there are twenty-something different "Latino" cultures in Latin America - none of which is the same as the various Latino mini-cultures in the US.

As an example, anyone who thinks that Mexico's rich and sometimes proud Indian heritage is similar to Argentina's cultural heritage is simply ignorant at best. In fact Argentina purposefully nearly wiped out its own indigenous population in an effort (according to the war rallies of the times) "not to become another Mexico."

And the cultural heritage of the Dominican Republic is as different from that of Bolivia and Peru as two/three countries that technically share a same language can be.

And for example, Mexican-Americans' tastes in food, music, and politics, etc. are wildly different from Cuban-Americans and Dominican-Americans, etc.

Would anyone ever group Swedes, Danes, Germans and Norwegians and create a "Nordic-American Museum"? Or how about French, Spaniards, Rumanians and Italians for a "Latin-European-American Museum" - hang on - that doesn't fit or does it? Makes my head hurt.

For the record, I don't believe in segregating artists according to ethnicity, race or religion. How about letting the art itself decide inclusion in a museum. And if not enough African American, or Native American, or Latino/Hispanic or "fill-in-the-blank"-American artists are in the mainstream museums, then let's fight that fight and not just take the easy/hard route of having "our own" museum.

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Nancy Sansom Reynolds, a very talented area sculptor, opened this last Sunday at Addison/Ripley in Georgetown. I've reviewed her work a couple of times in the past, when she used to exhibit at the now defunct Anton Gallery, and have always been impressed by the manner in which she extracts "form" from wood through a most intricate and fragile process. Her exhibition goes on until November 22, 2003.

Also in Georgetown, Annie Gawlak's G Fine Art has "Lost and Found" by Jeff Spaulding opening next Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2003. The show goes until Nov. 29.

Maryland artist Anne Cook is going through an exhibition blietzkrieg. Her new series of paintings titled "Freedom of Speech" were included last month in the Torpedo Factory's "Layers" show in Alexandria, and then at the A. Salon Artists Group Show in Silver Spring and now will be included in Arlington's Museum of Modern ARF "Breaking the Silence: Questioning Authority" show that opens on Oct. 24 and hangs until Nov. 22, 2003.

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The Bethesda Row Arts Festival, featuring over 250 fine artists and crafts people from all over the US is going on today and tomorrow around Woodmont and Elm in Bethesda.

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Colby Caldwell, one of my favorite and also one of the most innovative photographers around, opens at Hemphill Fine Arts on October 23 and his exhibition runs until November 29.

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Today is the Third Friday of the month, and thus it is gallery opening night at the four Canal Square Galleries in Georgetown: Alla Rogers, Fraser, Parish and MOCA

Openings go generally from 6-9 PM and are catered by the Sea Catch Restaurant.

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The Hirshhorn Museum recently announced that its Contemporary Art curator Olga Viso had been promoted to Deputy Director. This is good not only for the museum, but also for Washington area artists, as Viso has been one of the rare few DC area museum curators to show any interest in her own backyard when looking for artists. She will have Dan Steinhilber's first museum show. Steinhilber is without a doubt one of our most talented and hottest artists right now.

Kristen Hileman has also been appointed as the Hirshhorn's new Assistant Curator for Contemporary Art.

Today I was reading the Washington Post, and even though that their own Style Section banner on page C5 announces that Thursdays are supposed to be focused on "Arts News/Galleries," there was no "Arts News" anywhere to be found.

In fact, other than Jessica Dawson's Galleries column, which is published regularly every Thursday, there's rarely any "art news" - certainly little of the visual arts genre, published anywhere in either of our two major newspapers.

So, time permitting I hereby enter the world of online BLOGing in the hope that I will have time to use this BLOG to post art news, gallery openings, events, etc. as I receive and/or discover them.

And there's a LOT to pick from. In co-owning two galleries in the Greater DC area with my wife, plus 20-plus years of freelance art writing and criticism, plus creating and exhibiting my own art, puts me in a place where I get a lot of news releases, insights and notices about our area's art scene.

In fact the Washington art scene is very active, it is just being ignored,

I hope to use this venue to share them with anyone interested in promoting the Greater Washington, DC visual art scene. Please email me at lennycampello@hotmail.com with comments, suggestions, criticism, etc. Anonymous nasty emails will be ignored, but the senders will be tracked down and their asses kicked.