Inside the Art World

Kinetically illustrated with multiple photos of each interviewee, these conversations with 37 artists, museum directors, gallery owners, collectors and curators offer an entertaining, freewheeling, privileged glimpse inside the contemporary art scene. Site-specific artist Christo explains how he ``borrows'' the energy and associations of public spaces. Roy Licthenstein observes, ``The passionless style is my passion.'' Diamonstein, a curator, prolific author and arts administrator, is equally at ease whether talking to artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Dale Chihuly and Jeff Koons, or to figures like Earl Powell III, director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. A keynote is sounded by Kirk Varnedoe, curator of the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, who defines contemporary art as a process of continual openness, tolerance and independent judgments going beyond established categories and fixed rules. (Mar.)