Chelsea was a ghost town last week, the art world's usual suspects having decamped for the Art Basel Miami Beach's combination of commerce and glamour. But the neighborhood's chilly, deserted streets—along with a spate of envelope-pushing shows—offered near-perfect conditions for contemplating the death of art. It is, of course, salutary to remember that art has been dying for at least a century now, if not longer. The impossibility of creation (whether after Auschwitz, as Theodor Adorno wrote, or in the recent glare of media attention, or while making do with art's traditional companions, neglect and poverty) is, in fact, one of art's... More >>>