Absolutely nothing: that’s how much I knew about the art world when I left graduate school (Ph.D. unfinished) in the early 1960s and moved from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to New York.

A typical Reinhardt-Hess office conversation, easygoing at first, would accelerate to a flurry of pronouncements, rebuttals, and arguments centering on one or another recent art event.

A short flashback to Paris, 1958 – 59, where I first met Linda Nochlin, already a formidable scholar and accomplished writer, who was soon to become a good friend.

What is art? This question has been up for grabs for about a century. It is a question every artist must ask when embarking on a career. The same question must be faced by every curator, critic, collector, art dealer, and non-profit administrator—indeed, every participant and observer, casual or otherwise, involved with the present cultural scene.

Formal innovation as a prerequisite for serious, ambitious art prevailed into the late 20th century. Today, innovation is no longer an issue of central concern.