Essay: WHAT IS ART TODAY?

The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of the earth and the galaxy of the stars, but that in this prison we can fashion images of ourselves sufficiently powerful to deny our nothingness.

—André Malraux

What images? Among those currently proffered to the public for contemplation: a series of six, large, identically white pictures by Walter de Maria differing only in that on one the artist has written in pencil the word Sky, on another River, on a third Mountain. Four packing-case-sized and identical boxes by...

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