Wandered through a few European museums last month. You find yourself looking at the 435th Annunciation, this time by Giovanni Battisti Garbonzo DiLavatrini, and the eyes start to glaze. If there’s a modern room, it wakes you up, like chewing ice with a mouthful of cavities; then you get to the most recent works, which are conceptual pieces: a sheet of copier paper with nothing on it, framed, titled “Out of Toner.” At that point you’re ready for Annunciation #426.
There’s more art back on the cruise ship, ranging from competent to kitschy-kitschy-koo. It’s for sale! One night at dinner I was seated next to a fellow who’d run a fine-art gallery, and when the subject of shipboard art came up, he assumed the expression of Shelley Duvall in The Shining when Jack Nicholson comes hacking through the bathroom door. But people buy it.
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