The Post's uber arts crtic, Blake Gopnik, has sparked the passions of the D.C. arts community once again (and not because of an article about the National Gallery's gelato offerings). Gopnik, lamenting that some of the city's best art is held behind closed doors in private collections, is calling for a collectors' coalition that would show off its best holdings in a local setting.

What does Gopnik (who is pictured below when he was arts critic at the Globe and Mail) have in mind?

Here's how it would work: A consortium of the city's best collectors of contemporary art would come together to make their art available for exhibition. They would find a modest, white-cube space and invite independent curators to fill it with selections from their holdings.

The project would be a win-win all around.

Tyler Green's Modern Arts blog shuns Gopnik's idea, saying that would demonstrate that D.C. is an arts "regional backwater":

Gopnik's idea treats DC like its collections exist on an island, apart from the "rest" of the art world. Why would the capital of the free world want to peg itself as a regional backwater (when it comes to art) by investing time, energy, and funding in such a middling concept?

Meanwhile, DC Art News praises the general idea of Gopnik's proposal, but calls it a pie-in-the-sky idea that would be difficult to get off the ground.

It's a great idea, although Blake shows his inexperience in the business aspect of running an art space if he considers that the "cost would be minimal." A key to it would be a free space (rent is the killer for most art galleries and institutions), but heating and cooling costs, added to the astronomical cost of insuring artwork, plus the cost of printing materials, plus the cost of publicity, not to mention salaries of all involved all adds up to a substantial amount of funds just to get the place kick started - even if a dozen wealthy collectors threw in their financial backing at once.

If as Gopnik suggests, the area's embassies are involved, then perhaps an international arrangement also involving finances could be included!

DCist notes that while most people can't take advantage of private collections in the city, you can visit one musuem that will make you feel you're in a personal collection. The Kreeger Museum, on Foxhall Road, is one of the city's best kept secrets. Housed in the Kreeger Mansion, which was designed by Phillip Johnson with Richard Foster in the 1967, you must arrange an appointment to gain entry to the home's impressive galleries. The Kreeger is closed for the rest of August.