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What will happen to this curious institution? Until the lawsuits finish, it is hard to say. When one thinks of the financial problems that beset the few really great small museums founded on a single person's taste -- the Frick in New York City or the Phillips Collection in Washington -- the idea of wasting $98 million on this trivial package seems obscene. The Hammer Museum cannot evolve into a serious collection. It would have difficulty making a mark as a site of temporary shows, since there is too much competition from other Los Angeles museums. Perhaps, as one critic suggested, the place could be converted into the Armand Hammer Memorial Multiplex Cinema. Or perhaps it should be left as it is, a warning to egotistical collectors who think they can achieve immortality by setting up their own museums. A monument, in short, to the vanity of vanity.