Artspeak

Mr. Quinn[…] was uptown exploring the new $26 million, 40,000 square foot museum addition because he takes students to museums as part of a course he teaches in New York on what to say about paintings—artspeak.

Complication is what artspeak is all about. It seeks to confer status and worth on an artist's work by insisting on its obscurity, which it conveys through a grey porridge of abstract nouns.

On the other side of the wall, the affable Mr. Campbell, dressed in jeans and a camouflage baseball cap, attempted to assess the tattoo he chose for Mr. Gachot in the language of artspeak. “With skulls, there’s so much symbolism and power,” he said.