I don't often go to curator or artist walk-throughs of exhibitions. For a critic, it feels like cheating. I want to see shows with my own eyes, making my own mistakes, viewing exhibitions the way most of their audience sees them.

It is not possible to overstate the influence of Paul Cezanne on twentieth-century art. He's the modern Giotto, someone who shattered one kind of picture-making and invented a new one that the world followed.

Venice is the perfect place for a phase of art to die. No other city on earth embraces entropy quite like this magical floating mall.

Anybody who writes knows the horrible, wonderful, beautiful foulness that comes every week. A lot of moaning, screaming agony - "Oh my god, the deadline's coming."

Of course art world ethics are important. But museums are no purer than any other institution or business. Academics aren't necessarily more high-minded than gallerists.

Elizabeth Peyton, the artist known for tiny, dazzling portraits of radiant youth, is now painting tiny, dazzling portraits of radiant middle age.

I have never really cooked, don't know how to use my dishwasher, and subsist mainly on prepared deli takeout. I don't even eat in restaurants much.