My job as art critic is to watch artists dance naked in public, and then I will, in turn, dance naked critically in public.

The German ueber-photographer Andreas Gursky was the perfect pre-9/11 artist.

Decades ago, Gerhard Richter found a painterly philosopher's stone. Like Jackson Pollock before him, he discovered something that had been in painting all along, always overlooked or discounted.

The New York gallery scene being as incredibly overpopulated and overmoneyed as it is, deep conflicts and contradictions aren't hard to find.

Works of art often last forever, or nearly so. But exhibitions themselves, especially gallery exhibitions, are like flowers; they bloom and then they die, then exist only as memories, or pressed in magazines and books.

I see around 100 shows a month, going from Niketown-size palaces where you feel like yelling, to storefronts in Bushwick. Each has to pay the bills; keep artists happy; and cope with collectors (oy!), curators (ay-yi-yi), critics (woo-hoo!), and occasionally plumbers. That their fiscal life often hangs in the balance only adds to the energy.

I think that cynicism is the enemy. Cynicism thinks it knows how things work. "Oh yeah, you know how that works." I think uncertainty is the thing you have to keep embracing. You have to keep saying, I actually don't know, and going out is going to tell me something every time.