When I went to Christopher Grimes Gallery for the opening of the exhibition of paintings by Scott Short, I didn't detect any signs of crisis. There were only two large, abstract, black and white paintings in the front room, which made for a very elegant, spare installation. The last time I saw this artist's work was a couple of months ago in New York, at the Whitney Biennial, so I was looking forward to seeing his new exhibition here in Los Angeles and meeting the artist himself. Scott Short's paintings put me in a rather contemplative mood, offering an interesting dilemma: should they be perceived as a proliferation of white shapes painted on a black ground, or black shapes painted on a white ground? Am I seeing a night sky through flakes of falling snow, or, a vast snow-covered landscape dotted with hundreds of tiny dark splotches – skiers, perhaps?