Art Quote by J. Carter Brown

A little victory lap disguised as institutional memory, J. Carter Brown’s line turns a bad review into a benchmark for how cultural authority ages. The jab at The Washingtonian isn’t just petty score-settling; it’s a reminder that taste is a power struggle, and early gatekeepers often confuse familiarity with quality. By naming the magazine, Brown pins the skepticism to a specific local voice, the kind that polices what “fits” Washington. The East Building, I.M. Pei’s sharp-angled addition to the National Gallery of Art, was controversial precisely because it refused to melt into the city’s neoclassical self-image.

Brown’s intent is twofold: defend daring patronage and quietly justify the risks he championed. He’s not arguing on abstract aesthetic grounds. He’s stacking verdicts, moving from the parochial (a city magazine) to the professional canon (the AIA), as if to say: time and expertise will expose your knee-jerk conservatism. That escalation matters. The quote dramatizes a familiar American cycle: new architecture arrives as an affront, then becomes civic pride once it’s safely absorbed into postcards and gala rhetoric.

The subtext is also about institutional leadership. Brown, as a longtime cultural administrator, frames controversy as a necessary stage in making something lasting. The kicker is the word “triumph,” which recasts what was once “shouldn’t” into a moral failing of the critics. It’s a neat reversal: the building didn’t change; the audience did.