Obviously, everyone wants to see the peaks. But if you can only see the mountain tops you can never know how high they are. Often, more can be learned from so-called 'lesser art'; artists frequently go to the wrong parts of art history to re-invent it. As things are, too many so-called great artists are being propped up by their '-sms' and would be of little interest otherwise (e.g. Motherwell, Gottlieb). Regardless, young artists frequently go to the wrong parts of art history to re-invent it.

That passage echoes quite nicely Blake Gopnik's essay on second-tier artists from last October.

Saltz continues to chide MoMA for its lack of risk-taking. Lately, it seems like arts writers are using more ink [or pixels] to critique the institutions rather than artists. I'm sure statistics would show this not to be the case, but it feels that way. Most of these critiques include suggestions for next steps - that's something I can't remember seeing (other than in a flip manner) in critiques of artists. Perhaps that's because it's safer to take a position on what institutions should be doing for the public.