John Baldessari, The 79-year-old Conceptualist, Has Spent

Many Museums Are Drawing Audiences With Art That Is Ostensibly More Entertaining Than Stuff That Just Sits And Invites Contemplation. Interactivity, Gizmos, Eating, Hanging Out, Things That Make Noise - All Are Now The Norm, Often Edging Out Much Else.

The Greatest Work Of Art About New York? The Question Seems Nebulous. The City's Magic And Majesty Are Distilled In The Photographs Of Alfred Stieglitz And Paul Strand.

As I Made My Way Through 'on Line,' The Austere, Stridently Dogmatic, Sometimes Revelatory Exhibition 'about Line' At Moma, I Found Myself Thinking, 'someone Please Wake Me When The Seventies Are Over!' In The Empire Of Curators, The Sun Never Sets On The Seventies. It Is The Undead Decade.

It Took The Metropolitan Museum Of Art Nearly 50 Years To Wake Up To Pablo Picasso. It Didn't Own One Of His Paintings Until 1946, When Gertrude Stein Bequeathed That Indomitable Quasi-cubistic Picture Of Herself - A Portrait Of The Writer As A Sumo Buddha - To The Met, Principally Because She Disliked The Museum Of Modern Art.

Lucian Freud's Career Affirms That The Only Thing An Artist Can Do Is Remain True To Whatever Vision, (lack Of) Talent, Or Ideas That Happened To Pick Them In Order To Be Made Known To The World.