Art: Whither Away

One sure way to start an argument in artistic circles is to try to define the course of contemporary American painting. Sometimes it seems headed for new heights, sometimes for dead-end crashes. It ranges between the two extremes of realism: 1) making paint look as much as possible like something else, and 2) letting it look like just paint. It makes some people mad and others glad, on alternate days. A good example of what the shouting is about can be seen this week at Manhattan's Guggenheim Museum, where Director James Johnson Sweeney has...

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