Make An Enemy Of Jealousy

Damien Hirst Is The Elvis Of The English Art World, Its Ayatollah, Deliverer, And Big-thinking Entrepreneurial Potty-mouthed Prophet And Front Man. Hirst Synthesizes Punk, Pop Art, Jeff Koons, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Bacon, And Catholicism.

Pictures Artists Staged Their Own Images Or Copied Or Cut Out Others Already In Existence. The Viewer Took Them In Separately, In Sometimes Paradoxical Waves: An Original Image, Then The Manipulations Of It, Then The Places Where Image And Idea Intersected. This Created A Crucial Perceptual Glitch That Irony And Understanding Filled.

My Culture-deprived, Aspirational Mother Dragged Me Once A Month From Our Northern Suburb - Where The Word Art Never Came Up - To The Art Institute Of Chicago. I Hated It.

When Museums Are Built These Days, Architects, Directors, And Trustees Seem Most Concerned About Social Space: Places To Have Parties, Eat Dinner, Wine-and-dine Donors. Sure, These Are Important These Days - Museums Have To Bring In Money - But They Gobble Up Space And Push The Art Itself Far Away From The Entrance.

I've Always Said That An Art Critic Can Put Aside Politics Around Art.