For a show such as this, I can think of no better juncture in history than the present. Clowndom pervades our nation, and the smell of their greasepaint extends internationally to the roar of an unwilling crowd: The Global Big Top. From where I stand, painting creepy masked buffoons with suspicious intentions crudely on discarded household debris is at the core, the crux, the cutting edge of the zeitgeist. And it's far less futile a pursuit than voting. Is this neo-expressionism? Perhaps. But it's done as part of an unbroken tradition that remembers that what you call an "ism" was once just simply known as "art". The real "Old Masters", the painters of visceral stick figures on Lascaux cave walls, are nearer and dearer to my heart than the sum total of post-modern creation which, ironically, is merely a pantomime of art. But the time has come to stare into the clowny abyss, if only just a glance, like looking at your rear view mirror while putting on makeup. We must fight fire with seltzer water. We wage a war to save civilization itself. We did not seek it. But we will fight it. And we will prevail.