These limitations make it too risky to put up, well, risky shows. They’re so short on space that if they handed over the museum to someone totally ‘New’ and it turned out to be a flop (which could either be because the work was bad or simply because nobody knew who the person was and therefore under-judged it–and, a sidenote: when they put up shows of ‘new, young’ artists and these artists are culled by polling a group of leading curators, critics, and artists, you’re not really going to get ‘new’ work, are you? You’re going to get semi-established artists… but anyways…) they’d lose a lot of credibility in the other direction. They’re between a rock and a hard place.

When is the last time a major museum in New York, or even the new Museum had a show of a truly “emerging artist.” The New Museum was never supposed to be Artists Space.

Even P.S.1’s Greater New York show had lazy and bullshit curating. Many of the artists visited by the curators were recent grads of Columbia’s MFA program or whatnot, who then recommended other friends to the curators. That is no less democratic.

As a side note, the publisher of the Brooklyn Rail, Phong Bui, did an interview with Frank Stella in the May 2007 issue of Art+Auction magazine and what was Stella holding in a photo in the contents page? A copy of The Brooklyn Rail, published by Bui!