The thing is, Kandinsky isn't easy to dismiss when you look at it more closely - the work with colour and transparency is technically very difficult. It's the same way that figure-skating looks effortless but in fact is very hard to do. Now Pollock and similar stuff is a different matter - I've yet to be convinced by that, but anyway.

Maybe you know different ppl, but my experience is that we evaluate art as to whether it says something to us, whether the artist's made us feel something. But an empty exhibit just evokes the feeling "why am I bothering". Sorry if I'm too literal-minded. I just hope Cage isn't going to try and sell CDs of it! Certainly some artists have shocked with the content of their creations, however this does actually require a creation!

To divert briefly to music: Clinton Hammond has a great talking-blues song about an alternative rock band whose alternative was to refuse to play. Very, very funny, and sums up the pretentious attitudes of some artists/musicians brilliantly. And the first Dire Straits album has the song "In the gallery".

Graham.