There is very little about Washington, D.C. that is cutting edge, avant garde, culturally trenchant, cool, hip, or forward-thinking. I can say that—I'm from there. It's a city built on a swamp, dotted with monuments to the nation's past, a home to governing bodies so deadlocked they prevent change from happening in the future. The bars suck. Punk is dead. Sure, the subways are clean and quick, but isn't there something suspect about that? Anyway, Melissa Chiu, the new director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in my lovely hometown where a new high-hops microbrew is the peak of creative vision, has decided to introduce D.C. to something we like to call "contemporary art." How is she going to do this? She's created the position of curator at large, who will be based in New York City.
