Luc Tuymans at David Zwirner

It's test time. Which of the following words best describes the above painting?

1) Soft
2) Luminous
3) Monochrome
4) Gruesome

Unless you chose #4, you are hopelessly out of touch. This sensitive, stripped down palette is hyped as a critique of mass entertainment (and Disney in particular) in the press release for Luc Tuymans' latest show, "The Management of Magic," at David Zwirner gallery.

The release describes the painting, named "Turtle," as a painting of a defunct mechanical float at Disneyland, saying "Divorced from the bright lights and whirring excitement of the parade, the familiar childhood favorite is rendered gruesome and hollow by Tuymans' broad brushstrokes and anemic colors."

This is how skewed and self-deceptive the highest echelon of Chelsea art galleries have become. They've taken perfectly good paintings and propped them up with ideology. No one walking in off the street would see such a thing, and even reading the press release it's difficult to connect the dots. I overheard one man in the gallery actually saying the work was soft -- "like Seurat."

Why does this disparity between meaning and object continue to happen?

I got a clue when I asked the young gallerina at the desk if there was a price list. No, she said, but she could get a sales associate if I was interested in buying. She guessed all the work had sold out, anyways.

Maybe I should've asked the sales associate what the press release meant.