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

Giant Group Events Are Distorting Organisms: You Can Like And Hate Them In Rapid Succession.

All Great Contemporary Artists, Schooled Or Not, Are Essentially Self-taught And Are De-skilling Like Crazy. I Don't Look For Skill In Art... Skill Has Nothing To Do With Technical Proficiency... I'm Interested In People Who Rethink Skill, Who Redefine Or Reimagine It: An Engineer, Say, Who Builds Rockets From Rocks.

Among Living Artists, George Condo May Be The Most Embraced By The Powers That Be.

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.

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.