Clear Channel Values Size Scale over Quality

Clear Channel Exhibitions values stagecraft; the replication of the Sistine Chapel ceiling embodies this approach.

The Vatican has been keenly aware of the promotional value of art for centuries. There would be no Sistine Chapel ceiling without this point of view. Clear Channel Entertainment, a 900-pound gorilla in the American concert, radio and billboard industries based in San Antonio, Texas, clearly believes exhibitions are part of its present and future, too, and sees the promotional value in a visual extravaganza about the Vatican.

You need look no further than the San Diego Museum of Art. The epic-sized “Saint Peter and the Vatican: The Legacy of the Popes," is on view in Balboa Park through Sept. 6.

The San Diego Museum of Art isn't the only place where the name Clear Channel Exhibitions appears in local venues this summer. The companion shows “Chicano Now" and “Chicano Visions" are also on tour courtesy of Clear Channel, and they occupy the downtown and La Jolla spaces of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego through Sept. 12.

But the Chicano projects weren't actually assembled under the auspices of Clear Channel. The media conglomerate inherited them, along with some interactive nature and science shows, when it acquired an Ohio-based exhibition service called BBH in 2001.