The Market: Goodbye Paris, Hello New York

(2 of 2)

"Although the French congratulate themselves on carrying the torch of civilization, there is a lack of interest in art," says Lawrence Alloway, curator of the Guggenheim Museum. "The attendance for the entire run of the recent Dubuffet show in Paris—granted that it was not at the height of the season—was 8,000 to 9,000. Here at the Guggenheim, we have that many people on a single Sunday." Alloway believes that "schools of painting flourish under anxiety and affluence," and New York has both. But Manhattan Critic Harold Rosenberg argues that on balance, "the concept of a world art capital is obsolete. Art flourishes in New York because New York is a kind of global city, a kind of momentary focus of global art which exists everywhere. There are historical analogies to show that there have been places where everything was working and suddenly all the life went out of it. 'The wind bloweth where it listeth.' We can't make predictions about inner qualities."