Every season in art is cause for hope. Amidst a culture that often seems torn asunder, art does what it has done since the beginning: It explores consciousness in ways that are clarifying and unexpected — like thunder struggling to be heard through a storm. The hum of this fall is thrilling, with revelations of graphic masterpieces by W.E.B. Du Bois and 19th-century ceramics from South Carolina to the reappearance of the great painters Matthew Ritchie and Beatriz Milhazes. The beloved NY Art Book Fair is back in the belly of the Chelsea beast, while the best photographer of the last 40 years, Wolfgang Tillmans, has a career retrospective at MoMA. Let the doomsayers of our time disperse as we make our ways through these fields of promise, horror, and beauty.
