A really inspirational show, titled "Allusions of Grandeur: Trompe L'oeil Art", was mounted at the Michael Katz Gallery.  here one has the opportunity to see what I mean about the neoclassical trend.  The artists included were Jonathan Bressler, John Carey, Norvel Hermanovski, Donald Lawrence Herron, Peter Osnato, Franc Palaia, Richard Yoder, Peter McCaffrey and ad infinitum (you remember ad, he's the greatest).    Peter Osnato's little sculptures immediately  won my heart, tiny Doric and Ionian columns with statuary from the Renaissance that Bressler put on canvas, and a grand version of Michelangelo's David using the stressed out aged peeling technique.  He also made a vase and bust that were pretty good. The painted wicker vase made by Don Herron was really a surprise because it certainly didn't look like straw.  Instead it looked like that heaviest breakable material--marble.  Three hanging boxes by Norvel Hermanovski didn't look like much other than odd chicken coops.  The surprise was that the boxes could only really be viewed if one stood inside them (actually you just put your head in;  Stephen Saban aptly called them head hives).   Classical romantic roman scenes were frescoed on all four interior walls.  Skeletons with sickles, those traditional reps of the Angelo Della Morte, marble columns and Roman bath scenes brought Pompeii to mind.  Franc Palaia's pieces of graffitied walls weren't really walls at all, of course, but manufactured versions.  All artifice, otherwise it couldn't have been lifted.  Palaia won the Prix de Rome and studied doing walls in that city, the only place where people still make an honest wall.  The whole thing was a sham show and I don't think there's been a better trompe l'oeil art exhibit anywhere (even if it hadn't been labeled a trompe l'oeil show, the point was made with ease).  There were such pleasant surprises here that I stayed longer than I do at most galleries...I  had to expose these frauds.  It was a great show.  Too bad for you if you didn't see it.