Ladies and Gentlemen, bienvenue. We are the Artfag.

And we realize it has been terribly long since we indulged in one of our patented introductions, what with our recent love of the editorial essay, and the attendant spatial constrictions implied, to say nothing of the miniscule bit of hoopla that ensued. We trust our fair city is none worse for wear after our polite reaming.

In truth, darlings, we have little to report, save of our experience at the Shari Boyle performance at the Latvian House recently, programmed by the Pleasure Dome (the only reason it does not merit its own essay is that we arrived ever so slightly late, and so what little journalistic ethics we have prevent us from waxing rhapsodic about something we did not see in its entirety). We have this, merely, to say: that the performance was nothing short of magic of the rarest kind, sweet and sad and brilliant.

What we like: the crisp air, gently falling snow, the medicinal excuse to consume large amounts of liquor.

How we are: busily preparing for hibernation.

What we don't like: oh darlings, almost everything lately.

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It has happened, darlings, mostly on occasions when we are involved in pursuits of a sartorial nature, that we encounter what we have ordained the Salesman's Glint. We are sure you've encountered this too: you are trying on a garment, say, with your attentive helper standing a respectful few feet to your rear, when you catch a glimpse of his (or her) eyes: the Salesman's Glint. The message therein contained is meant to be one of imperturbable confidence, an affable nonchalance about your impending monetary transaction. Of course, this condom-thin veneer hides a desperation that is at the base of all such transactions: the desperation to close the deal, to earn his (or her) commission, to demonstrate to all and sundry that he (or she) is worthy of their post.   Think of it as a mating ritual for this, our capitalist state of nature.

As we were propelled ever upward by the escalators in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, and as we turned the corner to behold the gleaming rows of white stalls known as the Toronto International Art Fair, we were almost blinded with the collective issuance of Salesman's Glints. The better, more experienced (or simply more pragmatic) gallerists did a better job of keeping their glints to a discreet glow, but for the rest, this was It: wealth perambulating through their stalls, and all they had to do was make the right pitch.

Let's not be naïve about things, ladies and gentlemen: this is the way the art world not only is going, but (in fact) has gone, long since. And despite the protests by some of nausea at the sheer gaucheness of all this naked buying and selling, TIAF is a microcosm of the wider world of this phenomenon. The rush, the crowds, the noise, the Special Events (more on that later), the tacit abstention from (or the gross overabundance of, depending on your point of view) the more decorous etiquette of the gallery-going world; this is the animal, and these are its teeth and claws. Moreover, the general consensus is that this particular animal makes an excellent pet, so let's breed more and more of them. The Scope fairs now number five international versions; Art Basel has two installments, one on either shore of the Atlantic; Frieze has managed to restrain itself to merely one version of itself; and this is to say nothing of the myriad regional and local art fairs such as ours that have not (yet) achieved the pomp and circumstance of their hydra-headed brethren.

So no point in poo-pooing; such is the nature of the beast. And it was bound to happen, someone was bound to discover that this is, in fact, a much more marvelous and efficient way of doing business than sitting behind a desk at a gallery, waiting for Mr. and Mrs. Moneybags, esq. to happen by. And quite frankly, ladies and gentlemen, this arrangement benefits all involved: both the galleries and their artists are exposed to a vast number of people, all concentrated (or imprisoned, depending again on your point of view) in one area. Better to learn lessons from the proceedings than to shut one's eyes and ears until one is at a safe remove.

Lesson one: despite what one may think, given the sardine-tin arrangements of such things, these events - any of them, even TIAF - are an excellent way to view and to judge art. Which leads me into lesson two: despite what one may think, these events are an excellent way to view and judge galleries. Consider: among such a glut of works, packed in edge to edge, row by row, column by column, section by section, one gets not only a fairly lightning-quick review of what's going on in one's art world (in the case of TIAF, the horizon is decidedly local), one gets a fairly lightning-quick assessment of who the practitioners of quality are, and whether or not their reputation is accurate. To put it bluntly, they will be the ones that you notice. In this arena where visual competition is all, if an artist is truly deserving of their attendant hoopla, they will be the ones who stand out amongst the mundane dross of work that pile before your weary eyes like garbage day at an art supply store.

And the same goes for galleries. Amidst this teeming mass of dealers, two kinds emerge: the good, and the bad (and both were on eminent display at TIAF). The Bad (the ones whose Salesman's Glints will shine like a car's high-beams) will view these occasions as excuses to pack everything into their stall that they possibly can. What materializes is a kind of desperate summation of any- and everything the gallerist can offer, like a frenzied genuflection before The Buyer. The message, delivered in frantic tones, is this: no matter what you want, we have it! As in courting a lover, so it is with courting a buyer: nothing is quite so repulsive as the hysterical display of ingratiating need. Thus is a gallerist unmade. Consider the alternative: the good gallerist views the art fair as an occasion to curate, to select a few works by a small but representative number of artists in order to put forth a vision, an opinion, an argument on behalf of themselves and their representatives. Thus, the gallerist not only avoids the appearance of base retail desperation, but has actually managed to provide, with limited means, a Show, a thing of careful consideration, and therefore, breathing room; a space of deliberation and probity amidst the chaos of the marketplace.

So: we all learned ourselves two valuable lessons, and we timed it to the minute, so that we would not be late for our scheduled talk. In our case, we were interested to hear what would issue forth from Jerry Saltz, former senior art critic of the Village Voice, sometime contributor to Modern Painters magazine, occasional Pulitzer Prize nominee, one-time advisor to the Whitney Biennial, erstwhile art columnist for New York Magazine. He was lecturing as part of the Power Talks series, hosted by the Power Plant. And was it ever a Power Talk, in the worst sense.

To us, the phrase Power Talk conjures up a series of cohorts: power lunches, power naps.   In short, activities so engaged in the pursuit of power that their original intent falls by the wayside; the purpose of a power lunch is never to eat, we refuse to entertain the notion that anything under an hour constitutes a nap, and, in the case of Mr. Saltz, a seemingly incessant diarrheic spewing of barely digested homilies only served to underscore the difference between "talking" and "a talk."

And what did Mr. Saltz talk about? Well, it's hard to say, really. According to the program, he was meant to pour forth on this, the life and métier of an art critic. In actuality, he delivered a nigh-2 hour schtick that fenced around subjects having vaguely to do with the definition of art ("thought embedded in material," pace Mr. Saltz, in case you were wondering), how to be an artist in this day and age, and, once Sarah Milroy assumed the stage to govern the Q & A portion of the proceedings, how the audience was smarter than both he and Ms Milroy (a point we were all too willing to accede).

In short, instead of giving a talk, he performed what we're assuming he thought we all wanted to hear. One could make out his attitude to the task at hand by sifting through his coy attempts at name-dropping: he was in New York the night previous (at a Francesco Vezzoli performance at the Guggenheim, in case you were wondering), he's about to get on a flight to be in Chicago that night; and in between, he has a stopover in the colonies. And what do the colonies want? A caricature, one assumes from his presentation: a hyperactive New York Jew à la Woody Allen with a dash of Tony Robbins. Needless to say, the Ladies Who Lunch, Rosedale division, in all their finery, with faces held up by elective medical intervention, ate it up in one low-carb gulp: the careening around the room with the hand-held mic, pausing occasionally to rest his elbow jauntily on an elevated thigh; the poo-pooing of the "Artforum crowd" as being snobby and academic and thus, not Of The People (unlike Mr. Saltz-of-the-earth); the well-rehearsed chestnuts about the odds-against chances of Making It in the art world, and the attendant importance of confidence and stick-to-it-iveness; the reassurance that not only was money Not All That Bad, it was in fact, Somewhat Necessary; the affected pet names (we were addressed variously as "my sweets, my loves") meant to signify gossipy intimacy.

And speaking of pet names, this is exactly what passed as Mr. Saltz's central thesis.   After about 45 minutes of sitting through all this, we were already wondering what on earth we were still doing there. And then, Mr. Saltz paused dramatically, turned to face his audience, and asked, "How many of you have dogs here?" We blanched. We shall do our level best to relate what followed in as straightforward manner as we can manage, as any pejoratives on our part would only be gilding the already absurd lily.

So, in response to his survey, a number of hands went up. Mr. Saltz then polled the audience as to their canine companion's names. The Ladies, being addressed directly by this delightfully eccentric little man, enthusiastically called out over each other their respective animal's names. Mr. Saltz then said, "Now, I'm sure this has all happened to you," and proceeded to mimic calling a dog, kissy noises and all. Mr. Saltz's imaginary hound was duly attentive. He then leaned in close to his handheld mic (for the maximal amount of volume and therefore emphasis; something Significant this way comes!) and said, "My darlings, this is communication with another species."

O, but he was not finished.

He then polled the enraptured crowd (well, save for a few non-believers in the back) as to the proportion of cat-owners. And, as with the dogs, he asked for names. And lo, the names flew forth, what with the Ladies' enthusiasm and anticipation whipped up to a fever pitch. And, as with the dogs, he mimicked calling a cat, kissy noises and all.   To demonstrate the reticence of his theoretical cat, Mr. Saltz regarded us quizzically, and then went over to an imaginary couch, and then rubbed himself against the podium, signifying the successful calling of the cat. A close lean-in to the mic portended the gem of wisdom that would bring this (literal) game of charades a shred of meaning: "now, my sweets, the cat put another element between you and itself.   That is art." And on it went.

But how on earth could he match the metaphorical élan of cat-as-art? From there on in, the homilies didn't sparkle quite as brightly. And by the time Sarah Milroy took the stage - and ladies and gentlemen, as fond as Mr. Saltz was of the sound of his own voice, this did indeed take quite a while - to direct Q & A and do her best impersonation of a doting schoolgirl, the energy of all and sundry was flagging. Nevertheless, Mr. Saltz managed to haul out some choice musings, referring to Chris Ofili's work as having "mojo" and "serious juju" (and lest you think that he was merely being racially clever with his afro-jive ebonics, he lauds Matthew Barney's work with the same jargon), and leading a mass interpretation of Damien Hirst's newest folly, the already infamous diamond skull. This, coincidentally, is where the audience was declared to be cleverer than the presenters. In response to the shouted-out readings, ("diamonds are forever, but the skull is a memento mori !" declared one undampened enthusiast, effectively fusing art criticism with a DeBeers commercial) Mr. Saltz was inspired to cry, "Darlings, what we're doing here is so much more important than what I or Sarah do - we're talking about" - close lean-in to the mic! A pound on the table! 24-karat wisdom approaching! - "CONTENT." Hallelujah!

The faithful then lined up to buy his book and have it autographed. By that time, we were so exhausted by this tsunami of half-baked chicken-soup-for-the-artist's-soul metaphors and truisms that we clean forgot to glean any lessons from the proceedings, and made a beeline for the exit. We staggered forth, past the stalls offering subscriptions to Border Crossings , past the lottery draws for a New Car, out of the rarified air of the Convention Centre and onto Front street and eventually home, to regard our cats in a whole new light.

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We remember when the Greener Pastures gallery opened, as the hoopla that surrounded its foundation harked back to a more innocent time on this, the vertiginous brink of development that has become Queen West. At the time, the boutique hotels that currently squat to either side of Greener Pastures were still being literally squatted, and opening a gallery so close to the Parkdale underpass seemed an effort of colonial encampment akin to Lost In Space.

Still, hoopla there was, and the memory that has heretofore defined Greener Pastures is of trying to gain entry into the damned gallery. It always seemed to be half-empty, between shows, and never open; we began to regard their "gallery hours" signage as something of a sly joke. Which brings us neatly to André Ethier's new show at Greener Pastures, "Deep Purpose," whose very title, if this collection is to be redeemed in any way, is a sly joke.

Mr. Ethier, in his painterly career (as opposed to his musical career), indulges in a kind of visual vocabulary that has lately become very au-courant. It borrows heavily from '70s psychedelia, and its genesis, as far as we can make out, springs from naughty boys' magazines like Mad or Cracked (on the PG end of the scale) or Screw (on the more, ahem, adult end), and came to contemporary hipster prominence on the back pages of Vice Magazine. It is a deeply mannered style, and like anything mannered, its hallmarks are rigidly codified: an embracing of a studied formal naiveté, a lazy delight in jocular pot-head humour, the iconography of Old Weird America (hobos, hayseeds, shaggy beards, ratty overalls), and a heavy reliance on album cover art as a frame of reference.   Needless to say, its appreciation depends on a thick caking of irony, a distanced taste for the kitsch of suburban male adolescent aesthetics. In sum, it is low on intelligence, low on formal rigour, and high on charm.

Mr. Ethier's particular assay into this particular netherworld is a pungent concoction of the aforementioned old album art and the vernacular of fantasy epics, bound together by a fondness for grotesquerie. The show is largely comprised of close-cropped 'portraits' of various and sundry ogres and trolls and hobos, with three eyes and toothless mouths, all bearded and bald and lumpy, like third-stage syphilitics. They are all limned in thin strokes of muddy brown sloshed over glazes of greens, yellows, blues and pinks, and the whole thing looks like Puff the Magic Dragon by way of Led Zeppelin.

The pictures are cute enough, but not much more. Pursuant to the irony of the show's title, they are clearly not intended to weigh heavily on the mind. Each painting is very much like another, and so the entire show seems in homage to the erased short-term memory, as if Mr. Ethier expects his viewer to have forgotten what they just saw half a foot down the wall. These are merely one-off images, riffs, not on a theme, but on a visual conceit. There is no especial perspicacity or depth (either of purpose nor anything else), no central thesis beyond the desire to emanate a kind of affable, hazy ideal of cool. Which is, in fact, a terrible pity, as Mr. Ethier has a knack - an ease with paint, and a wry sense of humour - and despite the thinness of this show, you can see it floating there on the washes of his sullied day-glo pictures. We must content ourselves, then, to wait until Mr. Ethier stops being content with the superficial and finds his Deep Purpose, which is so elusive here.

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