The only way to see contemporary art is by going to galleries, and the number of galleries that compete for the attention of a fairly limited number of gallery-goers is bewildering. Every month, hundreds of shows make an appeal to us either by virtue of the reputation of the artist or of the gallery or of both. And even with these swollen numbers, many of the most deserving artists are denied the distinguished presentation that their work really deserves. In the last couple of weeks of March, I must have seen a hundred shows in SoHo alone; what I culled from that number as being possibly worth writing about is less than a handful. I wouldn’t necessarily conclude from this that art has gone to hell; it may just be that the scene is now so crowded with frauds, clones, and mediocrities that it’s become a test of patience and willpower to find the genuine article. The bulk of the bad work is daunting; the variety of types of bad work is utterly confounding. Go to five shows and you may think you have a theory to explain it all. Go to twenty or thirty shows and you find your explanations falling away. The people who say they’re interested in how the art world works or in the sociology of art are the people who aren’t really involved. A true gallery-goer has only his eyes and his heart to guide him, and all he cares about is finding something