Robert DeNiro Sr.'s paintings at Salander: art has only symbolic/celebrity value today. Nothng is intrinsically interesting about these works no matter how hard David Cohen in the Sun tries to wring meaning from them.

Art is all imbued value. It never raised disgust until it became commercialized at the end of the 19th century.


Couple of quotes of the day: Wolfe: " I cannot stand the lock-step among everyonein my particular world. They all do the same thing without variation."

Add Cy Twombly to the Schnabel list..........all rhetoric no emotional content........all I can do is to viscerally respond to an image then determine if it is "life enhancing". CT a phony. Of that generation, Rauschenburg in the interstices between real and commercial and Jasper Johns right on the money.

Mary Boone and those dealers in the 80s, many Castelli's Bunch, made some good choices and many bad, strictly commercial ones. Dopey collectors dying for a place to put their surplus cash just went along with the program.

This morning I caught The Newtonian Moment at the extraordinary library here. Au fond there is really only science. I felt once again the intoxication of history, notably Western European Modern History, that was so powerful in my 20s and 30s.

The UBS ads featuring artists in the collection now on view at MoMA; the Clemente "Perseverance" is particularly awful -- poorly drawn, meaningless botches of paint...........no structure absolutely no meaning. What a con job.

Phony Baloney Schnabel Award: Susan Rothenburg and Philip Guston, who create ugly images of no artistic merit. More later, hopefully daily.

By the by I think HIlton Kramer the most lucid art critic since Roger Fry (and also by the by I never know what the hell Updike is talking about in the New Yorker).

Disraeli: "It destroys one's nerves to be amiable every day to the same human being."

Johnny Carson: "My bugging point is low."

Know what you mean, guys.

Yesterday the most amazing thing happened. I went to the Chelsea Museum of Art and while waiting for an appointment with the Director I perused the art books in the lobby for a half hour. A veil lifted from my eyes and I actually started to understand (not exactly appreciate) what the artists were trying to do. Unfortunately they are obssessed with sex and death and violence.

Saw Easy Rider on the boob.....hacked to incomprehensibility of course...and what a bleak paranoid picture it painted. At the time I too believed that all those non-urbanites were killers. It is difficult to make sense of our states of mind at the time...it had to be more than just Vietnam. Perhaps we were the last generation when ideas were important. Now they seem like a luxury.

James Truman's departure from Conde Nast -- he had agreed to read some of my articles (Duchamp, Clark,Fry) and all had hopes for the arts mag but he will ultimately be relieved.

NYTimes Book Review yesterday features a Pop Psychology Book about how first impressions are irrational and sometimes right and it becomes instant news. Gladwell had to be on the circuit; my book about QM and ESP more important and reached no one because ....ca le va sans dire.

On this dreary semi holiday I get a huge laugh out of a review of some book or other on Theories of Modern Art. Thus one George from Seattle: "I hate art more than I did after having read this book and attempted to make use of it in an art class. Artists are all a bunch of frauds who capitalize on ignorance and stupidity...to think these people have buildings for their worthless no talent pieces of crap." And on it went and I find my art historical head shaking Yes Yes.

The Curse of the Mummy: now that Diana's illegitimate child is Playing Nazi (unimaginably grotesque) how long will it be before he is "immobilized" by the Establishment? He appears to be as insane as his mother.

Tina Brown appears to take the Dan Rather controversy seriously; he IS an empty trenchcoat-actor Dahling-- reading news others write.

Final Squeamish Notion of the day: Oprah Winfrey's program. She grins obsequious grins to the white audience as she interviews truly creepy people like the singer Celine Dion. Come on pal--you're in a position to ask intelligent questions.

Wordsmith Guy Davenport died; we had a great affection for his writing but in the end tired of the endless stream of vowels and consonants. Give me a clear pristine style that says exactly what you mean.

Now that the Scott Peterson case closed (did they sentence a man to death with no evidence?) we should look again at the Chandra Levy cold case. Why don't her parents offer one million to anyone with evidence leading up to a conviction? Some termite would come out of the woodwork for that kind of money.

Back on the trail of The Critics with the lure of Fry and the old friends of my past. I am amazed that the relationship between him, Clark and Berenson hasn't been discussed in any depth.

Santayana on I Tatti: "soulful tourists and weary dilettantes" (1912); amongst them was to be none other than the big hick from the midwest Hemingway who thought the little emperor a true sage! Years later Jackie O and other naifs ...etcetera etcetera.

That scoundrel BB: he kept secret the fact he got 25% of Duveen's take from 1907-1929. The Attribution Game big business then and he as shady as they come.

New Yorkers are the most conformist people on the planet, almost atavistically so. No one strays from the party line and no one dares assail 20th century "art". We are long overdue for a diatribe against the low quality of the objects purveyed to gullible collectors; Kenneth Clark referred to collecting and somewhere between tax evasion and gambling.