A Great Artist Has A Unique Vision...obsession.

Everyone Goes To The Same Exhibitions And The Same Parties, Stays In The Same Handful Of Hotels, Eats At The Same No-star Restaurants, And Has Almost The Same Opinions. I Adore The Art World, But This Is Copycat Behavior In A Sphere That Prides Itself On Independent Thinking.

Chris Ofili's Suave, Stippled, Visually Tricked-out Paintings Of The Nineties, With Their Allover Fields Of Shimmering Dots And Clumps Of Dung, Are Like Cave Paintings Of Modern Life. They Crackle With Optical Cockiness, Love, And Massive Amounts Of Painterly Mojo.

Any Critic Will Tell You That There Are A Few Dealers Where You Get A Little Bit Scared To Go Into Their Gallery, And That's Unfair To Them, To Yourself, To The Reader, And To The Artist. But I Just Want To Look. When I'm Done Looking And Writing, I Love Talking To Art Dealers. They Are So Alive And Interesting And Amazing - From Larry Gagosian All The Way On Down.

Mission Accomplished. The Museum Of Modern Art's Wide-open, Tall-ceilinged, Super-reinforced Second Floor Was For All Intents And Purposes Built To Accommodate Monumental Installations And Gigantic Sculptures, Should The Need Arise. It Has Arisen.

All Great Contemporary Artists, Schooled Or Not, Are Essentially Self-taught And Are De-skilling Like Crazy.