I've Always Said That An Art Critic

The Art World Is Molting - Some Would Say Melting. Galleries Are Closing; Museums Are Scaling Back.

The Art Gods Cooked Up Something Special For James Ensor.

Rumors Sound Of Galleries Asking Artists For Up-sized Art And More Of It... Everything Winds Up Set To Maximum In Order To Feed The Beast. Bigness Is Not All Bad. There's Something Pleasing About Large, Well-lit Spaces. But The Bigness Has Also Led To A Narrowing Of Sensibilities, By Making It Very Hard For Any But The Glitziest Works To Get Traction.

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.

Many Say An Art Dealer Running A Museum Is A 'conflict Of Interest.' But Maybe The Art World Has Lived An Artificial Or Unintentional Lie All Of These Years When It Comes To Conflicts Of Interest.