I'm not for or against video - or any medium or style, for that matter. Jerry Saltz More Quotes by Jerry Saltz More Quotes From Jerry Saltz The New York art world readily proves people wrong. Just when folks say that things stink and flibbertigibbet critics wish the worst on us all because we're not pure enough, good omens appear. Jerry Saltz new-york people art Being critical of art is a way of showing art respect. No sports writer would say, "Well the Yankees had a great season this year." No food critic would get a bad meal and say, "Oh, it was so lovely." It always strikes me as odd when people say, "Why do you write negatively about any art?" I think that everybody has mixed feelings about everything - even Goya. I mean, I look at Rembrandt sometimes and I hear a voice in my head go, "It's pretty brown." Jerry Saltz writing sports art Artistic qualities that once seemed undeniable don't seem so now. Sometimes these fluctuations are only fickleness of taste, momentary glitches in an artist's work, or an artist getting ahead of his audience (it took me ten years to catch up to Albert Oehlen). Other times, however, these problems mean there's something wrong with the art. Jerry Saltz mean years art After too much art that made too much sense, artists are operating blind again. They're more interested in the possible than the probable, the private that speaks publicly rather than the public with no private side at all. Jerry Saltz too-much sides art Auctions are bizarre combinations of slave market, trading floor, theatre and burlesque... a lot of people are going to be making a lot of excuses or maintaining that they were never part of this. Jerry Saltz trading-floor theatre people Anybody who writes knows the horrible, wonderful, beautiful foulness that comes every week. A lot of moaning, screaming agony - "Oh my god, the deadline's coming." Jerry Saltz writing wonderful beautiful All great contemporary artists, schooled or not, are essentially self-taught and are de-skilling like crazy. Jerry Saltz crazy self art Art is a self-replicating force. Jerry Saltz force self art There are many, many art worlds. Art contains multitudes. Jerry Saltz multitudes world art Being critical of art is a way of showing art respect. Jerry Saltz art-is way art 'The Night Cafe' and 'The Starry Night' still emit such pathos, density, and intensity that they send shivers down the spine. Whether Van Gogh thought in color or felt with his intellect, the radical color, dynamic distortion, heart, soul, and part-by-part structure in these paintings make him a bridge to a new vision and the vision itself. Jerry Saltz color heart night 'The Panorama' is also the last place anywhere in New York where the World Trade Center still stands, whole, as it stood in the early morning of September 11. I can also see the corner where I saw the first tower fall and howled out loud. Seeing the buildings again here is uplifting, healing. Jerry Saltz uplifting new-york morning When I criticize Joseph Beuys or Francis Bacon, nobody calls those opinions anti-male. Putting female artists or their subject matter off-limits is itself sexist and limiting. Jerry Saltz males female artist There's one Baldessari work I genuinely love and would like to own, maybe because of my Midwestern roots and love of driving alone. 'The backs of all the trucks passed while driving from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, California, Sunday, 20 January 1963' consists of a grid of 32 small color photographs depicting just what the title says. Jerry Saltz santa-barbara sunday color There's something pleasing about large, well-lit spaces. I love that dealers are willing to take massive chances in order to give this much room to their artists. Most of all, I love that more galleries showing more art gives more artists a shot. Jerry Saltz space order art Those who love him love that he sells the most art; they take it as a point of faith that this proves Kinkade is the best. But his fans don't only rely on this supply-and-demand justification. They go back to values. Jerry Saltz demand fans art Too many younger artists, critics, and curators are fetishizing the sixties, transforming the period into a deformed cult, a fantasy religion, a hip brand, and a crippling disease. Jerry Saltz hips disease artist Urs Fischer specializes in making jaws drop. Cutting giant holes in gallery walls, digging a crater in Gavin Brown's gallery floor in 2007, creating amazing hyperrealist wallpaper for a group show at Tony Shafrazi: It all percolates with uncanny destructiveness, operatic uncontrollability, and barbaric sculptural power. Jerry Saltz creating wall cutting When money and hype recede from the art world, one thing I won't miss will be what curator Francesco Bonami calls the 'Eventocracy.' All this flashy 'art-fair art' and those highly produced space-eating spectacles and installations wow you for a minute until you move on to the next adrenaline event. Jerry Saltz space art moving Rumors sound of galleries asking artists for up-sized art and more of it... Everything winds up set to maximum in order to feed the beast. Bigness is not all bad. There's something pleasing about large, well-lit spaces. But the bigness has also led to a narrowing of sensibilities, by making it very hard for any but the glitziest works to get traction. Jerry Saltz wind order art
