"Sculpture is tiresome," wrote Baudelaire in the 1840s, back when painting was the Western medium du jour. But the pendulum of critical taste swings both ways: Marcel Duchamp rejected painting after World War I; the New York School revived it; then it was declared dead in the late '60s—only to be resuscitated by artists like Tom Lawson, whose 1981 essay, "Last Exit: Painting," has gotten some renewed attention in recent years as the surging art market drew comparisons to, then promptly surpassed, the... More >>>