“Open Attitudes” was the title chosen to present a sample of new painting and sculpture by young artists at Oxford’s Museum of Modern Art. It is fashionable to talk of a resurgence of vitality and vigor in painting (sculpture, apparently, looks after itself), and of this new painting—especially that produced by an identifiable group of mostly young artists (aged around 30)—as being “alert,” “undogmatic,” “open” and “receptive.” Other adjectives have dubbed this trend “fertile,” “plenary” and “unashamedly eclectic.” The new painting is often more concerned with content than with formal niceties,