Books, Arts & Manners: Worshipping at the Church of Art

A RECENT segment of 60 Minutes, in which Morley Safer went to SoHo to vent his disgust at fashionable artists, dealers, and critics, has had the entire art world in an uproar. The encounter was a little like that famous cult classic Bambi Meets Godzilla, a one-minute cartoon in which we see the gentle woodland creature disporting himself in his natural habitat and then a massive reptilian foot descending out of nowhere to squash the luckless creature utterly.

Now no one relishes the thought of having the heavy hitters of 60 Minutes going after him, but inhabitants of the art world have become so docile, like domestic pets, that they were quite unprepared for the virulence of the assault. In no time at all, whining letters were being sent to the editors of the dailies, Charlie Rose devoted a whole hour to the conflict, and in a lengthy article the head critic of the New York Times, Michael Kimmelman, fawningly, and to no one’s surprise, sided with the art world.

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James Gardner

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A RECENT segment of 60 Minutes, in which Morley Safer went to SoHo to vent his disgust at fashionable artists, dealers, and critics, has had the entire art world in an uproar. The encounter was a little like that famous cult classic Bambi Meets Godzilla, a one-minute cartoon in which we see the gentle woodland creature disporting himself in his natural habitat and then a massive reptilian foot descending out of nowhere to squash the luckless creature utterly.

Now no one relishes the thought of having the heavy hitters of 60 Minutes going after him, but inhabitants of the art world have become so docile, like domestic pets, that they were quite unprepared for the virulence of the assault. In no time at all, whining letters were being sent to the editors of the dailies, Charlie Rose devoted a whole hour to the conflict, and in a lengthy article the head critic of the New York Times, Michael Kimmelman, fawningly, and to no one’s surprise, sided with the art world.