The Other Art Fair by Saatchi Art. “Dead Wood.” This is my impression after viewing the show assembled in Chicago in 2021. “Dead Wood” is a crowd of nice people, a bunch of images on the walls, and the overwhelming feeling of going through a furniture warehouse without the feelings the Great Art here and there is supposed to bring out. I found a trinket in the form of art books by Alexander, but not great images evoking any feeling in my heart. 
There is no question I will forget them all once I walk out of this stable of ready and willing artists. SAD Feeling.
You may ask me what makes GREAT ART.
The answer is simple—the piece which sets your heart alive.
Years ago, I used to live in Prague. The beautiful city at the time under the communist regime, like most cities in Czechoslovakia, was a little bit drab and grey. However, I could easily spot the beautiful great historical buildings and history still present in and among them. Leaving the city, I was trying to take a little bit of the place’s charm with me, so I walked into a local gallery and bought a print showing the town. I found the same print two years later ln Poland, where I was trying to clean my apartment before moving to Rome. The print was so average that I forgot about it.
A great piece of art has a distinctive personality. It stays with you, and you never forget about it.
My search for something beautiful in the overwhelming greyness of Czechoslovakia at the time brought out my dissatisfaction with myself for trying to find the “unique”. I was looking for uniqueness in a place it did not exist. I realized that I convinced myself to buy this piece because I was tired of my high aesthetic expectations and could not find anything, so I lowered my expectation to accept the artist and the art I bought. 
It would help if you remembered that at the time, like in any other country under a communist regime, the art and the artists present on the market were allowed to exist under the government’s strict control. Art reflects the spirit. Somebody who is not free and accepts ideological control can not create great art. The “Freedom” I am talking about is not the word “free” used in the west. This word has a separate and quite deep meaning. It reflects the deepest beliefs, a combination of honor and patriotism, not the freedom to do silly things. For people who lost it or are on edge, it Is a serious word.
Many of us looking for great art are taking a similar approach.
We lower our expectations to 
accept
what is ready and available. With the visual onslaught, it is very difficult to find something in the crowd to our satisfaction; The traditional criteria are gone (can you imagine music played by a performer who doesn’t know the instruments)? It is accepted in visual arts (for example, art by Alex Katz), So we get accidental quality performed by unskilled people. If you have any doubts, go to the contemporary art section of any museum and compare the number of present viewers with its historical area.
So where is the GREAT contemporary ART? It would be best if you learned to recognize it using traditional tools of logic, common sense, quality, and great visual appeal. Look into your heart, not in the market values.
I did not visit the “Other Art Fair” in 2022.