General comment: I expected the evening to be a bit of a snoozer, August being a slow go in artland, so I brought my blankie and my teddy bear, Neoconceptualism, but "Holy gouache and mixed media on board, Batman," I got fooled to the upside! Plenty of good art, and a first-ever tie for pick of the night in a spirited competition that pitted intellectual establishment art against streetsmart hip hop realism, going right down to the last glass of lukewarm generic white wine. The suspense is killing you, right?

Out of respect for the August doldrums, and in an effort not to work too hard, most galleries simply emptied their back rooms out onto the front walls, and are having group shows. The "Introductions" era, in retrospect destined for failure, is now mercifully over, and little more than a San Francisco art history footnote. I mean how misguided was this-- the downtown galleries gave August shows to artists who, by definition, weren't quite ripe enough to have shows there during the rest of the year-- and they thought that would work. But out of respect for the dead, let's proceed to the living...

Gallery Paule Anglim: Wendy Sussman; Dan Connally

Comment: Paule Anglim's eye for quality is as good as anybody's out there, and regardless of what I think about the art she shows (I liked tonight's), I always learn something. In typical Anglim fashion, Wendy Sussman's abstract representational line-straddlers, particularly the black and whites, engage over-arted viewers such as myself beyond quick analysis. The paintings have that little intangible extra that makes you stop, study and then say to yourself, "I think I get it." Point of information: Art can be good even if you don't like it; quality and personal taste are mutually exclusive.