Best Museum

It's still about the building. Renzo Piano's light-washed galleries are the standard by which to measure all other museums. But the building only sets the art in the best light. It's the curators who choose what goes into the beautiful galleries. And chief curator Matthew Drutt, in his first year, has shaken out some of the dust and cobwebs that had accumulated on the de Menils' remarkable collection. Now the works in the permanent collection get changed out on a regular basis -- no more twice-a-year visits. Drutt also commissioned new works by Vik Muniz and Ann Gaskell, whose premieres had the local art crowd buzzing. Next up: his survey of Kasimir Malevich's suprematist paintings, currently eliciting raves at the Guggenheim. The Menil is an exciting place again.