Art Is Good, Bad, Boring, Ugly, Useful

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.

While It May Be A Really Trying, Weird Time For The Art World, I See Good Work All The Time. If You Just Go Around To That Many Galleries, And If You Stay Open, You're Going To See Work With Enough Energy And Surprise. I Don't Think I've Ever Gone To The Galleries Without Coming Home Thinking, Gee, I Now Know Something I Didn't Know This Morning.

I'm Noticing A New Approach To Art Making In Recent Museum And Gallery Shows. It Flickered Into Focus At The New Museum's 'younger Than Jesus' Last Year And Ran Through The Whitney Biennial, And I'm Seeing It Blossom And Bear Fruit At 'greater New York,' Moma P.s. 1's Twice-a-decade Extravaganza Of Emerging Local Talent.

I Don't Know Much About Auctions. I Sometimes Go To Previews And See Art Sardined Into Ugly Rooms. I've Gawked At The Gaudy Prices, And Gaped At Well-clad Crowds Of Happy White People Conspicuously Spending Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars.

To Me, The Building [of Museum Of Arts And Design]now Looks Like A Lovely Jewel Box, And The Tiled Façade Reminds Me Of A Heat Shield.