Quotessence
Home / Authors / Jerry Saltz Books
Jerry Saltz

Jerry Saltz Books

Art critic

Related Quotes

“Artists must also reckon with the uncanny feeling that by the time we’ve finished a new work, we’ve often ended up creating something different from what we set out to do. This feeling of surprise, of the unexpected, can delight or disappoint us. … The creative process is an inexplicable, inspired, crystallizing place where the artist becomes an audience to the work, almost doesn’t know where it came from.”

ArtCreativityExpectationsSurpriseUncertainty
Book:How to Be an Artist
Create image

“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.”

WellsArtHardArtistOrderSoundSpaceWindAskingBeastSensibilityLitMaximumRumorGalleryTraction
Author:Jerry Saltz
Create image

“The place has had a super-conflicted relationship to its mission. In 1956, it opened as the Museum of Contemporary Crafts. Then in 1986 it had a midlife crisis and changed its name to the American Craft Museum. Then in 2002 the name changed again, this time to the Museum of Arts and Design. Maybe in 2025 the place will be called the Designatorium. The big problem with a museum of craft and design is that all art has craft and design.”

ArtProblemBigsNamesDesignChangedCrisisMissionsContemporaryCraftsMuseumsBig ProblemsMidlifeMidlife Crisis
Author:Jerry Saltz
Create image

“The debut show, “Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary,” is supposed to be about how artists reuse humble or unusual materials. There’s good work here, but much of what’s on view is actually more about obsession and repetition: a couch made out of 3,500 quarters, a necklace composed of 100 handgun triggers. The building, too, seems caught between wanting to be an object of decorative delectation and making an architectural statement.”

ArtMadeShowsSeemsArtistViewsDesignObjectsBuildingMaterialsOrdinaryCaughtHumbleStatementsObsessionSupposed To BeMuseumsUnusualQuartersGood WorkRepetitionTriggersCouchesDebutNecklacesHandgunsReuse
Author:Jerry Saltz
Create image

“Any negative review you write, they'll say, "Oh, you're being so mean." I think the problem with a lot of criticism is that too many critics either write just description or they write in a Mandarin jargon that only a handful of people can understand, or they write happy criticis - everything is good that they write about. I think that's really not good. I think it's damaged a lot of our critical voices.”

PeopleThinkingWritingMeanProblemNegativeCriticismCritics
Author:Jerry Saltz
Create image

“The reason I love blogs so much right now is that I am seeing more critical voices appear, and that's kind of thrilling. I think a lot of critics in their forties or even their thirties have had their voice scared or trained out of them by the academy. I have nothing against the academy. I think it's brilliant and fantastic, but I also think that it's become almost monolithic. The same way a lot of art looks the same, a lot of writing can sound the same and quotes the same theorists.”

ThinkingWritingKindArtReasonCriticsScaredBrilliantFantasticForty
Author:Jerry Saltz
Create image

“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."”

PeopleThinkingWritingMeanArtSometimesFeelingsSportsArt IsCriticsLovelyOddMixed Feelings
Author:Jerry Saltz
Create image