Playing Hooky

Or is it hookie? Either way, I have today off -- my magazine has some strange ideas about when to celebrate President's Day weekend. I had thought of doing a brief blogpost anyway about my visit yesterday to preview the Armory Show at Pier 94 on the West Side of Manhattan, one of seven -- count 'em, seven -- art fairs going on simultaneously around town this weekend. Then I thought about what I would write, the usual lament about the rising domination of the artworld by market values, the bone bruising mosh pits that the shows can turn into, the impossibility of focusing on anything among the 150 galleries that have taken space inside the huge facility that is Pier 94, an immense basilica of lemonade stands. And then I thought....naaah, who needs to hear that again?

Meanwhile, if you still feel like reading something lengthier today on an unrelated topic, I can direct you to the new issue of Time, where I talk about staged photography and the Jeff Wall retrospective at MoMA in New York.