Jerry Saltz Quotes

• I see 30 to 40 gallery shows a week, and no matter what kind of mood I’m in, no matter how bad the art is, I almost always feel better afterward. I can learn as much from bad art as from good.

  Jerry Saltz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Mood, Almost

• I rage against Vincent van Gogh for needing to die at 37, after painting for only ten years.

  Jerry Saltz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Rage, Needing

• I often find myself privately stewing about much British art, thinking that except for their tremendous gardens, that the English are not primarily visual artists, and are, in nearly unsurpassable ways, literary.

  Jerry Saltz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Visual, Artists

• I love Rauschenberg. I love that he created a turning point in visual history, that he redefined the idea of beauty, that he combined painting, sculpture, photography, and everyday life with such gall, and that he was interested in, as he put it, ‘the ability to conceive failure as progress.’

  Jerry Saltz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Sculpture, Point

• I love art dealers. In some ways, they’re my favorite people in the art world. Really. I love that they put their money where their taste is, create their own aesthetic universes, support artists, employ people, and do all of this while letting us see art for free. Many are visionaries.

  Jerry Saltz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Taste, Favorite

• I like that the art world isn’t regulated.

  Jerry Saltz

  Topics in Art

  Tags in Regulated

• I like something about George W. Bush. A lot. After spending more than a decade having almost physiological-chemical reactions anytime I saw him, getting the heebie-jeebies whenever he spoke – after being sure from the start that he was a Gremlin on the wing of America – I really like the paintings of George W. Bush.

  Jerry Saltz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Reactions, Getting

• I know it’s dangerous to take on bloggers. They can go after you every day, all day long, and anonymous people can chime in, too.

  Jerry Saltz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Anonymous, Dangerous

• I have never really cooked, don’t know how to use my dishwasher, and subsist mainly on prepared deli takeout. I don’t even eat in restaurants much.

  Jerry Saltz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Cooked, Restaurants

• I have a soft spot for art that, in terms of subject matter and material, is in bad taste.

  Jerry Saltz

  Topics in Art

  Tags in Taste, Soft

• I hate art auctions.

  Jerry Saltz

  Topics in Art

  Tags in Hate

• I don’t plan out my visits rigorously, but I do have a list of about 125 New York galleries, alternative spaces, museums, and so forth that I visit regularly. That’s the closest thing I have to a strategy: I go to a lot of places, many that artists don’t visit.

  Jerry Saltz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in New York, Museums

• I don’t often go to curator or artist walk-throughs of exhibitions. For a critic, it feels like cheating. I want to see shows with my own eyes, making my own mistakes, viewing exhibitions the way most of their audience sees them.

  Jerry Saltz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Cheating, Shows

• I don’t know much about auctions. I sometimes go to previews and see art sardined into ugly rooms. I’ve gawked at the gaudy prices, and gaped at well-clad crowds of happy white people conspicuously spending hundreds of millions of dollars.

  Jerry Saltz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Crowds, Dollars

• I also take pleasure in the so-called negative power in Grotjahn’s work. That is, I love his paintings for what they are not. Unlike much art of the past decade, Grotjahn isn’t simply working from a prescribed checklist of academically acceptable, curator-approved ‘isms’ and twists.

  Jerry Saltz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Prescribed, Twists

• Giorgio Morandi’s paintings make me think that artists may not totally choose, or even control, their subjects or style.

  Jerry Saltz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Artists, Style

• Giant group events are distorting organisms: You can like and hate them in rapid succession.

  Jerry Saltz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Rapid, Succession

• Galleries needn’t be exactly like White Columns purely because times are bad again. But the idea of this special space could – should – help shape what comes next.

  Jerry Saltz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Purely, Exactly

• First let me report that the art in the Barnes Collection has never looked better. My trips to the old Barnes were always amazing, but except on the sunniest days, you could barely see the art. The building always felt pushed beyond its capacity.

  Jerry Saltz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Barely, Felt

• Galleries began growing in both number and size in the late seventies, when artists who worked in lofts wanted to exhibit their work in spaces similar to the ones the art was made in.

  Jerry Saltz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Exhibit, Galleries

Jerry Saltz (168)

Birth:	1951
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Critic, Journalist

About

Jerry Saltz was born in Illinois, USA. He is an American art critic. Since 2006, he has been senior art critic and columnist for New York magazine. Formerly the senior art critic for The Village Voice, he has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism three times. He has also contributed to Art in America, Flash Art International, Frieze, Modern Painters, among various other art publications. He served as a visiting critic at The School of Visual Arts, Columbia University, Yale University, and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He served as a judge in the Bravo television series Work of Art: The Next Great Artist. He has written several books include: Beyond Boundaries (with Roberta Smith), Seeing Out Loud, Seeing Out Louder, Contemporary Art in North America (with Ken Lum).

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Today's Anniversary - 9th January

Births

• 1978 - A. J. McLean
• 1856 - Lizette Woodworth Reese
• 1939 - Susannah York
• 1908 - Simone de Beauvoir
• 1890 - Karel Capek

Deaths

• 1998 - Kenichi Fukui
• 1865 - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
• 1908 - Wilhelm Busch
• 2003 - Will McDonough
• 1995 - Peter Edward Cook