Every now and then, one comes across something that is so much a product of the times as to seem a parody of them. A find of this sort occurred a few months ago, when I received in the mail an invitation to subscribe to Artnews magazine. The letter began by pointing out, with barely restrained glee, the role which art plays in contemporary life:
Go to any major art opening these days, and you’re likely to rub shoulders with more celebrities than at most Broadway or Hollywood premieres!
Join the auction sale of a new Jasper Johns painting, or a De Kooning, and watch the bidding go up, up and up—past the million dollar mark!
Or simply follow the Saturday crowds to a popular art gallery and feel the electric excitement that fills the air!
Artnews, I was then assured, would serve as my “guide” to this “exciting, expanding, exploding art world.”
I did not accept the offer, preferring to make my way through the jungle alone. I was struck, however, not only by the depressing—but no doubt unintended—accuracy with which this letter captured the sad and chaotic state of the art world today, but by the ease with which a much-read arts journal had abandoned even the pretense of responsible criticism. Even more troublesome was the fact that such a move, rather than seeming unusual, or even notable, only mirrors what now constitutes acceptable behavior within much of the
