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I do not want to sound like yet another cranky art gallery patron, so please take this in the holiday spirit in which it is intended.

The National Gallery of Canada is overdue for change. Big, cataclysmic change. It seems like the only time the gallery garners media attention is when it is embroiled in controversy.

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And not the good kind of controversy, either. The media storm that greeted the announcement of a potential sale of a coveted 1929 Marc Chagall painting to make financial room for the purchase of an 18th-century work by Jacques-Louis David sitting in a Quebec City parish was unfortunate, to be sure, but it sidesteps the bigger issue: The National Gallery is fiddling while Rome is burning.

Don’t get me wrong: A little controversy can be a good thing. I would welcome a media story on an exhibition that pushes the limits of what constitutes contemporary art. But few of those stories ever appear in my social media feed. Kudos to the gallery for partnering with the Sobey Award and for hosting a biennial that features some exciting voices in Canadian art. But there is much, much more to do.