Is it time for Arnold Lehman to step down from his directorship of the Brooklyn Museum? As the man who has led the institution for the past 13 years, the Brooklyn native has overseen several landmark exhibitions — most notably the Saatchi-organized "Sensation" in 1999, which Lehman laudably defended against Mayor Giuliani's censorship by taking the city to court — and built the museum out with an attractive new entrance in 2004 and the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art in 2007. What stands out during his tenure, however, are the cynical, ill-considered ploys that the institution has attempted in pursuit of visitors. But lowering the universal-collection museum's standards has failed to raise audience numbers, according to a report in the New York Times that shows attendance there dropped by nearly a quarter last year.

The century-old museum holds a permanent collection of superlative Egyptian, Pre-Columbian, and African works, as well as a strong selection of American painting; it has a good track record of innovative contemporary-art offerings, including the controversial "© Murakami" it took in from Los Angeles' MOCA in 2008. (That show, with its Louis Vuitton boutique, got to the discomfiting heart of the artist's work.) But under Lehman's direction the museum has continually undercut these positives with transparently pandering shows like "Hip-Hop Nation: Roots, Rhymes and Rage" in 2000 and the infamous "Star Wars: The Magic of Myth" in 2002, hunting for blockbusters that exist outside of the museum's wheelhouse.

These efforts to attract a "general" audience alienate dedicated museumgoers and harm credibility. Plus, it bears mentioning that while the recent Tim Burton survey was the Museum of Modern Art's third-most-visited show, its two top shows were historic exhibitions spotlighting the twin heart of its collection, Picasso and Matisse. For his part, Lehman told the Times that when conceiving shows for the Brooklyn Museum, “We don’t start with the fact that it could draw a lot of people. ... We start with the idea that it’s a great exhibition.” While that's certainly true for some shows, others, like last winter's "Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present," cast the statement in doubt.

Perhaps worst of all for the museum's integrity was the reorganization of its curatorial departments that Lehman pushed through in 2006, separating the staff into two divisions — one division to handle collections and another to organize exhibitions — all but ensuring that shows would be divorced from the museum's core, and placing scholarship on the sidelines. Lehman defended his plan by pointing to demographic shifts in Brooklyn, and across the country, that suggested focusing on the museum's "traditional" — read "white" — audiences would ensure an attendance drop.

"The whole point... was to better focus on the collections and to better focus on the exhibition program," he said at the time. "What will happen will be seen by everyone in the next couple of years.” That year saw the resignations of trustees (Michael de Havenon and Alvin Friedman-Kien) and curators (Elizabeth W. Easton, Marilyn S. Kushner, and Amy G. Poster). Looking back, it seems the museum's audience walked out with them.

Today about 25 percent of the museum’s traffic comes from its “Target First Saturdays” series, which lures guests with a cash bar and opportunities tomingle and dance. Lehman has expressed a desire to see the program “replicated on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,” while de Havenon — who has emerged as a voice of reason in the wings — raises the question "whether people cometo them to see art, or to enjoy music and drinks.” 

In its latest Hail Mary for audiences, the Brooklyn Museum has partnered with Bravos new television show, Work of Art: The Next Great Artist, as the site where the winner's work will be displayed in an exhibition. Just last month a longtime trustee, Martin Baumrind, stepped down, citing the fact that the museum had “become a partyplace and a center of celebrity — evidenced by the fact that they have partnered up with Bravo." He added: “That is not what I signed up for.”

We at ARTINFO happen to enjoy Work of Art as a work-related guilty pleasure, but could anyone imagine the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum's analogue across the water, affiliating itself with a reality program, let alone suggesting that admittance to its galleries could be won through the equivalent of a game show? Perhaps it's time that the Brooklyn Museum size itself up, trust in quality rather than betting its name on every populist crapshoot that comes along, and consider a change in leadership.