Firstly, contemporary art from Australia holds its own pretty comfortably with what's on view in New York. On the bell curve of art, I suppose there is a lot of work, everywhere, clustered around mediocre, but here there is just so much art that the weight of mediocrity is sometimes tiring, it is also vexing, as you make the rounds of ever so slick Soho galleries, that so much work that is so slight is passed off as serious or important, and for so many thousands of dollars. (But then, rents are high.) That's why the Melbourne painter, Jon Cattapan, here after a stint at the V.A.C.B.'s Greene Street studio, says he has mostly abandoned the galleries for the museums, preferring historical "fat art" to the "lean cuisine" downtown. Speaking of Australian artists, Merilyn Fairskye is about to complete her year in the PS.1 studio, where she has refined her anamorphic techniques and produced what I thin is her strongest work to date. Margaret Morgan, who has been living here on and off for four years, has shown here and in Boston, and is producing large, striking, multi-panelled works, developing on the complex, witty juxtapositions of her 1989 Mori Gallery show. Elizabeth Day has just left Greene Street where she installed a demanding mixed-media work (wooden struts and rays connected to the walls, and drawings), which was well-received at a private viewing and of which, last I heard, she sold some. Susan Norrie takes up residence there next and has a show scheduled at the Nancy Hoffman gallery later in the year, which will certainly compare favourably with work seen there last season. John Weber, one of the more intelligent... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline