Thus The Economist in its current edition. “Fear of litigation is hobbling the art market,” explains the newspaper. Apparently, plenty of experts are now too scared of lawsuits to authenticate works of art. Nowadays, forgers go for the Twentieth Century, and especially for abstract and expressionist art. To wit, this sort of stuff if easier to fake than are old masters. The situation has gotten so bad as of late that even academic discussions of authenticity are curtailed for fear of litigation. At any rate, the art market is suffering. On a positive note, though, live artists are doing better than dead ones, as they can easily assure buyers that everything is as it should be with their work. And this is really good news for artists of all creeds, and especially for those that manage to sell anything. At long last, being alive is a definite plus in this fraught field. Long live the living artists!