With so much exciting new art in the world, not to mention the emergence of technology-based art, why did the old and familiar continue to dominate at North America’s biggest museums in 2004? “A youth movement? As if. The biggest news in the art-auction world — often confused with real art-making, or the real world for that matter — was that sale prices by the likes of Mark Rothko and Jasper Johns, artists in their prime way more than 50 years ago, have finally caught up with the mega-bucks sales by the Impressionists… The problem is no one really wants to be on edge. In this country, art is treated like comfort food for the brain.”