While I attempted to somehow control the carnival, Max chatted with Jack Tilton, the gallery owner, about how he d never seen such a big turnout for any art opening in New York. Maybe if the strippers called themselves artists, they wouldn t be shut down. Art is about context and chutzpah. That is the question, the tiresomely obvi ous question that the television reporters asked me as the last come shots had dried, and the last art patrons drifted out the door. Don t ask me, I replied.
Art is in the eye of the art appreciator, as subjective as beauty, love, tragedy or pornography.
When early Renaissance painters depicted scantily clothed Greek-style gods and goddesses in the midst of sex acts with one another as well as various bulls, swans and sheep, rather than the usual Medieval crucifixion scenes, there was outrage. That s not art. Context and chutzpah rule. After the show, we all tramped over to the spacious and trendy Park Avenue Country Club and congratulated ourselves on having created the biggest art happening New York has seen in a long time. Whether it was art or not-art, we d just turned on, shocked, exhilarated, amused and inspired multitudes of Manhattanites.