Many people think that art fairs represent the erosion of art by forces of the marketplace. I suggest that the opposite might be the case. Maybe art is using available systems of training, display and distribution, as well as artists themselves, for its own mysterious ends.
Maybe art arrived on earth long ago in the form of an intelligent virus that turned people into artists on contact. Not everyone would have been susceptible, but some would, and through them – with the help of genetic mutation – art would propagate itself in forms appropriate to the social and historical development of its hosts.
This theory does not explain what art is trying to do beyond reproducing itself. But fortunately there are a number of art fairs going on this week in New York, which means there is a lot of new art in town about which to speculate. The main attraction is the Armory show at Piers 92 and 94. Here 228 dealers are presenting artworks in two different sections, one devoted to 20th century art, the other to 21st.
In the Modern (20th-century) section, the alien virus theory will seem less plausible because most of what is there has been culturally assimilated and therefore looks familiar. Nevertheless there are some fine things, most notably an excellent display of subtle, deceptively modest but though still lifes and landscapes – paintings, watercolors and etchings – by the beloved Giorgio Morandi at Galerie d'Arte Maggiore.
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