Everything Good in 2008

With 2008 now over, it's time to look over the Top 10 and year end lists that came out throughout December.  (I posted my list last week.)  In New York, William Eggleston: Democratic Camera at the Whitney, Abstract/Abstraction at the Jewish Museum, and Catherine Opie: American Photographer at the Guggenheim seemed to be the big winners.

Some year end pieces:

• Jerry Saltz - # 1 - Tino Sehgal at Marian Goodman, "I was horrified, mortified, and thrilled."
• Hrag Vartanian - #1: Abstract/Abstraction at the Jewish Museum, "a fascinating take on a topic that has been done to death."
• Joanne Mattera - Mary Heilmann at the New Museum, "The perfect yin and yang of loose-limbed geometry and aggressive color."
• Anaba (Bromirski) - RH Quaytman, Michael Zahn, Megan Pflug, and a bunch of other art no one else was covering.
• Modern Art Notes (Green) - Sarah Oppenheimer at the Mattress Factory, "stole the show" from the nearby Carnegie International.  
• Jen Graves - #1: WACK!  Art and the Feminist Revolution, "I just want to keep looking. And looking. And looking."
• Peter Schjeldahl - Jeff Koons retrospective in Chicago and his sculptures on top of the Met, "the most perfect—and perfectly enchanting—valedictory to the era suddenly past."
• Christopher Knight - Catherine Opie: American Photographer at the Guggenheim, "a marvelous retrospective whose only real drawback is that it won't travel west from its originating venue."

Two quirkier, wonderful lists:

• Kenneth Baker - Art Picks: Top Art Tome: Salon to Biennial - Exhibitions That Made Art History, 1863-1959.
• Colin Gleadell - Top Art Market Moments: #1: "Against a backdrop of extreme financial volatility, the year opens with Sotheby's, Christie's, Bonhams and Phillips de Pury & Co all announcing record sales for 2007 $13.4 billion between them, up by an average 50 per cent on 2006. How long can this last?"

Finally, Charles Finch has some predictions for the art world in 2009: "Damien Hirst's career is over. Like those of Schnabel, Cucchi, Salle and other victims of the late 1980s crash, Hirst’s values will never recover."