Hockney’s people

Summer, 1988. New York City is sweltering. Many of the beaches in Brooklyn and on Long Island are closed as sewage and hospital wastes mysteriously wash ashore. Ecosystems are collapsing. In the art world as well, trash keeps rising to the surface. Art in America’s special number, devoted to “Art and Money,” hits the newsstands. It’s a report on the many ways in which the art market is running out of control. The tone approaches celebration: one man’s calamity is another man’s triumph. Meanwhile, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, David Hockney, who knows something about sunbathing and something about art-and-money, is the subject of a retrospective that opened in June, before people had begun leaving town.[1] If anyone stuck in the city opts for Hockney on one of those weekends when the beaches are closed, they'll probably look a little...