The Met Is Not Only The Finest

When The Purse Strings Tighten Up At Museums, The Institutions Usually Cut Back And Cancel Shows. That's Exactly The Wrong Reaction. In Fact, Now Is A Good Time For Them To Loosen Up - A Chance To Breathe And Experiment A Little - And Go For The Juicy Solution Lurking In Their Own Basements.

A Saboteur In The House Of Art And A Comedienne In The House Of Art Theory, Lawler Has Spent Three Decades Documenting The Secret Life Of Art. Functioning As A Kind Of One-woman Csi Unit, She Has Photographed Pictures And Objects In Collectors' Homes, In Galleries, On The Walls Of Auction Houses, And Off The Walls, In Museum Storage.

Abstraction Brings The World Into More Complex, Variable Relations; It Can Extract Beauty, Alternative Topographies, Ugliness, And Intense Actualities From Seeming Nothingness.

Rumors Sound Of Galleries Asking Artists For Upsized Art And More Of It. I've Heard Of Photographers Asked To Print Larger To Increase The Wall Power And Salability Of Their Work. Everything Winds Up Set To Maximum In Order To Feed The Beast.

Living And Working For Four Decades In A Bologna Apartment And Studio He Shared With His Unwed Sisters, Morandi Painted Little But Bottles, Boxes, Jars, And Vases. Yet Like That Of Chardin And The Underappreciated William Nicholson, Morandi's Work Seems To Slow Down Time And Show You Things You've Never Seen Before.