A Painter Who Reads, a Reader Who Paints. Two exceptional New York shows of works by Ed Ruscha suggest that he has maintained his neutrality while surrounded by Pop, Color Field painting, Realism, Minimalism and Conceptual Art. By Roberta Smith. [New York Times: Arts]

Rubbish, of course, but Baby Boomers need Ruscha, like they need Barbara Krueger, to feel good about being embarrassed by their feelings. Irony, reflexiveness, PoMo: the bywords of today; tomorrow, they will be as embarrassing and wrongheaded as eugenics, Socialist Realism, and Marxism-Leninism, and worse, indistinguishable from the objects of their criticism.

Just think: somewhere, while the Boomers were drinking this Kool-Aid, real artists may have been making real art —in total obscurity. They'll pop up, where least expected, sometime in the near future, and they'll carry all before them, like Delacroix, like Géricault.

Real Flesh, Not Perfect or Prurient. Philip Pearlstein's nude paintings are hardly erotic and strangely austere, but they still shock people. By Michael Kimmelman. [New York Times: Arts]

After this era has been stored away in the attic of memory, Mr Pearlstein's nudes will be appraised for what they are: decorative works of contemporary fashion, ephemera like dresses or shoes, not memorable milestones in the history of art. Not bad, by a long stretch, but not 'great', either.

Even in a Moonscape of Tragedy, Beauty Is in the Eye. Photographs by Joel Meyerowitz represent a turning point in the visual history of ground zero. For the first time the ruins of the World Trade Center are being presented as beautiful. By Sarah Boxer. [New York Times: Arts]

Little Ones, Are You Haves or Have-Nots?. An exhibit at the Grey Art Gallery of New York University juxtaposes Lewis Hine's images of working children with aesthetically oriented photos by Pictorialists like Alfred Stieglitz. By Grace Glueck. [New York Times: Arts]

The Sexual Life of Catherine M. by Catherine Millet. New York: Grove Press. 2002 ISBN 0 8021 1716 3

La Vie sexuelle de Catherine M. by Catherine Millet. Paris: Seuil. 2001

Légendes de Catherine M. by Jacques Henric (Photographs)

Sexuality on Display, Repeatedly. This heartily pornographic memoir by Catherine Millet, an art critic with a "Belle de Jour"-style appetite for debasement, bluntly recounts her tireless adventures. By Janet Maslin. [New York Times: Arts]

For a less-jaundiced eye, glance at The Lady is a Tramp, a review by Joy Press in The Village Voice

The French! They are a funny race
They fight with their feet
They fuck with their face

Touch of Opera Buffa for Italian Old Masters Down Under. An exhibition in Australia of 107 works by Italian old masters is encountering criticism and controversy on a scale to match its blockbuster proportions. By John Shaw. [New York Times: Arts]

The Italians: Three Centuries of Italian Art

The exhibition will be hosted by the National Gallery in Canberra, Australia from 28 March to 16 June 2002, and then by the Melbourne Museum from 5 July to 6 October 2002.

A Warhol Retrospective Comes to Los Angeles. On Saturday, the Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown Los Angeles will open the first significant survey of Andy Warhol since 1989. By Bernard Weinraub. [New York Times: Arts]