Continuing a tradition that we began in December 2001, we have devoted a large part of this expanded issue of The New Criterion to the visual arts. Michael J. Lewis opens the issue with “Architecture After Modernism,” his brilliant contribution to “Lengthened Shadows,” our year-long series on American institutions in the twenty-first century. In addition to a bumper crop of exhibition reviews, this issue also includes “In the Kitchen of Art,” a splendid essay on art conservation by the distinguished conservator and art dealer Marco Grassi, and a conversation between the figurative painter William Bailey and the poet Mark Strand. In different ways, these pieces take us deep into the workshop of art: Mr. Grassi’s into some of its technical aspects, Messrs. Bailey and Strand’s into some aesthetic and historical issues. Mr. Bailey reflects partly on the evolution of his own work, partly on the contemporary art scene. As he notes, there are many fine figurative painters working today, but it remains “very hard” to see their work “because of the gallery system and the lock-step of museum curators and because it doesn’t fit in well with the established conventions of vanguard art. In other words, if you can’t put one on a wall with typical vanguard work … then it might as well be ignored.” It is one of the tasks of The New Criterion to move beyond “typical vanguard work” to the real thing. Mr. Bailey’s own work is one example. We discuss several other contenders in the pages that follow.

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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 22 Number 4, on page 3
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https://newcriterion.com/issues/2003/12/a-note-on-art

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