ACCORDING to the thermometer as well as the calendar, it’s finally spring, a great time for that urban sport known as gallery-hopping. The options in New York City have never been richer — in some neighborhoods, taking in the galleries requires Olympic stamina.

New York is often described as the former center of the art world, the torch having been passed to Berlin, London, Los Angeles or even New Delhi. Globalism notwithstanding, New York remains the center of the gallery world, and galleries are the bedrock of any truly thriving art scene.

No other city can match its sheer numbers, and such quantity creates its own strange, implicitly democratic form of quality. New York is still the place where the greatest range of art is selected for public view by the greatest number of people — namely art dealers, who operate independent of institutions. Month after month, they mount shows of artists or artworks they believe in for our consideration, and we don’t have to buy anything or pay admission (though occasionally we have to climb on something, after removing our shoes).