The Art Newspaper

Artistic vision

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Published online 5 Mar 10

The audience of the inaugural Robert Rosenblum lecture at the Guggenheim on Wednesday enjoyed the sparkling repartee of Norman Rosenthal and Jeffrey Deitch as they reminisced about their friend, the late scholar-curator, who expanded the art history canon to include academic kitsch such as Jean-Léon Gérôme’s painting of a pooch wearing a pinc-nez, Optician, 1902. At the end of the evening, questions were invited from the floor. Disregarding the debate about today’s “recessional aesthetics” or art as an “inter-generational investment”, the first questioner picked up the Gérôme reference and requested career advice for her artistic son who had just been diagnosed as colour blind. Rosenthal reassured the anxious art-mom that an ophthalmic challenge didn’t hurt Monet’s art—so the kid could go far. For more Armory week gossip, see our daily edition: www.theartnewspaper.com/fairs

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