WOW LOVER 66

Chinatown. Everybody who's got a Range Rover in the garage, a closetful of Armani suits and can tell the difference between a Medoc and a merlot is buying contemporary art. In the past few years auction prices for even mid-range famous artists (say, Richard Prince) have escaped the gravitational pull of prudence. Museums of modern and contemporary art--often glamorous and costly edifices designed inertia youth by international "starchitects"--have sprung up in practically every American city with a neon bank logo hovering more than 10 stories high. All of this has naturally led droves of ambitious youngsters--many of whom only a few years earlier would have chosen careers in graphic design, screenwriting or public relations--to declare themselves artists. The enterprise of contemporary art is now sufficiently noticeable to Cineplex-goers and couch potatoes to earn it a recent movie comedy (Art School Confidential) and a reality TV show (Art Star). In absolute terms, more ink is probably spilt on modern and contemporary art today than ever before. It would seem that there's not only enough material around to keep art critics currently writing for daily newspapers and national magazines busy in the extreme, but enough to require even more writers, more column inches, more coverage.