Art Glut: Who’s the Un-Fairest of Them All?

I know I told you I was going to the Armory Show, and I know I’m letting you down, but…
I JUST CAN’T LOOK AT ART THAT WAY!
I don’t know how people can enjoy art, let alone make decisions about acquiring it, in crowded supermarket conditions (Aisle 3, Louise Fishman—two large, lovely abstract paintings that were sitting on the floor, not hanging on the wall, at Cheim & Read; Aisle 4, cross-dressing belly dancer).
I’m even more mystified about how people buy art over the Internet. An overwhelming percentage of dealers’ offerings that look attractive to me on the web disappoint me in person. If I bought art that way, I’d be doing lots of return shipping. Maybe this works if you’ve seen comparable examples of the artist’s work and you can trust the dealer’s (or your adviser’s) judgment.
Call me old-fashioned, call me over the hill: I escaped from Pier 94 after about 40 minutes of bewilderment. Glenn Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art, was walking in just as I was getting my coat, joining a flock of MoMA curators who were flooding the zone, including Joachim Pissarro, who was perusing the booths with collector and onetime Hollywood superagent Michael Ovitz. Yesterday was a preview day to benefit MoMA’s exhibition fund.
I did score a thrilling museum-director trifecta, also glimpsing the Guggenheim’s Lisa Dennison at the fair. But the smartest of the bunch was the Whitney’s Adam Weinberg, whom I spotted later that night, from my pauper’s perch in the loge, in a side orchestra seat at the final installment of Tom Stoppard‘s trilogy, “The Coast of Utopia.”
Definitely a more satisfying experience.