Dominic Molon

mainstay in the annual State of the Union address by the American president to the nation’s citizenry is the assertion that “The state of the union is strong”—regardless of whether or not it really is. (And, partisanship aside, could you blame any president, whether Barack Obama or Donald Trump, for not saying otherwise?) One does not need a “president of painting” to affirm that the state of its nation is strong. Despite the rise of performance-based activity, and “social practice,” and the coming of age of truly technologically fluent generations, painting, that most traditional of artistic practices, hasn’t just survived but is