If it is true that a rising tide raises all ships, then Art Chicago proved this year that lowered admission standards diminishes all the art on view.
Everywhere glossy and slick surfaces abounded, indicating just how shallow the “return to beauty” has turned out to be. As Joel Kuennen writes this week on ArtSlant:Chicago, nostalgia was exploited as repackaged in pure commodity to entice prospective buyers. Similarly there was a surfeit of photorealist paintings and still lifes this year almost all without a hint of criticality or irony, and almost none able to compete with even the lesser of their art historical antecedents.
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