Except a large part of “local” art is derivative, contrived crap. Much is good, but the benefit of large museums like the Musee d’Orsay for instance is that there are professional curators that can create stories with the selection of art. However despite a large number of inept curators on the local scene, there are a few Peggy Guggenheim types that have an eye for new artists that are masters in the making. I like local art, but there’s a non-trivial number of “artists” that are pretentious beyond their talent and they think they are saying something when if fact, they are as unoriginal as Louvre copyists. It’s a joy to find an artist that is really good, but the signal to noise ratio is pretty terrible.
