Inconceivable (What Art Is)

“Perhaps conceptualism, minimalism, whatever we’re going to call it (even the philistine term ‘modern art’ is still, unbelievably, current) has lasted so long because the public is still baffled by what is going on. The achievement of the high renaissance was obvious, and it was over in a moment; Mannerism lasted a bare 50 years. Eighty years on, we are still gazing uncomprehending at replicas of Duchamp’s readymades.”