I have a soft spot for art that, in terms of subject matter and material, is in bad taste. Jerry Saltz artbadmaterial Change image and share on social
The art world is molting - some would say melting. Galleries are closing; museums are scaling back. Jerry Saltz artbackclose Change image and share on social
Our culture now wonderfully, alchemically transforms images and history into artistic material. The possibilities seem endless and wide open. Jerry Saltz alchemicallyartisticculture Change image and share on social
It took the Metropolitan Museum of Art nearly 50 years to wake up to Pablo Picasso. It didn't own one of his paintings until 1946, when Gertrude Stein bequeathed that indomitable quasi-Cubistic picture of herself - a portrait of the writer as a sumo Buddha - to the Met, principally because she disliked the Museum of Modern Art. Jerry Saltz artbequeathbuddha share on social
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 artauctionclothe share on social
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 americaanytimebush share on social
The forties, seventies, and the nineties, when money was scarce, were great periods, when the art world retracted but it was also reborn. Jerry Saltz artfortygreat Change image and share on social
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 artartistchance share on social
The price of a work of art has nothing to do with what the work of art is, can do, or is worth on an existential, alchemical level. Jerry Saltz alchemicalartexistential Change image and share on social
Abstraction brings the world into more complex, variable relations; it can extract beauty, alternative topographies, ugliness, and intense actualities from seeming nothingness. Jerry Saltz abstractionactualityalternative Change image and share on social