Peter Bowyer - Fanny 2009 galvanized steel, currently on view in Taxi! at Paul Petro Special Projects Space until Oct. 18,2009

The citizens now understand, having experienced these odd interventions – projections, groups of people in costumes, giant inflatable rabbits – that this kind of art is not appreciable in terms of what it means, like a riddle: It's about a group experience. It only means what happens when there is a crowd interacting around it. If the artists had a clear message, they would have written an essay. (Some of them, of course, have done so: Those are the weaker ones.) People are going out in masses for that group experience. This represents the victory, really, of so-called impenetrable contemporary art: It has got around the problem of interpretation, it has shown a suspicious audience that their own reactions, unfiltered by museums' didactic panels and audio guides, constitute the work's explanation. The party is the message.