Painter John Currin is hot at the moment. But Blake Gopnik wonders why. “Within the art world, where Currin’s career and reputation have been forged, he can get praise as an original not because he’s doing anything new or special but simply because some vanguard curators and collectors don’t get out enough. It’s as though the elites of contemporary art are so engrossed in their own world that they’re not aware of what’s already going on in the American mainstream – at shopping malls, on boardwalks and in Sunday painting classes.”