After its hothouse incubation in the seventies, appropriation breathed important new life into art. This life flowered spectacularly over the decades - even if it's now close to aesthetic kudzu.

Those who love him love that he sells the most art; they take it as a point of faith that this proves Kinkade is the best. But his fans don't only rely on this supply-and-demand justification. They go back to values.

A sad fact of life lately at the Museum of Modern Art is that when it comes to group shows of contemporary painting from the collection, the bar has been set pretty low.

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

If the Frieze Art Fair catches on, I imagine at least two great things happening. First, we will once again have a huge art fair in town that isn't too annoying to go to. More importantly, Frieze may finally show New Yorkers that we can cross our own waters for visual culture. That would change everything.

Batty as it sounds, subject and style may choose artists, through some unfathomable cosmic means. How else to explain that even artists who enjoy what they do can be perplexed or even horrified that they're doing it?

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.