“People make the mistake of supposing that genius is complicated. It is the opposite. We regular folks are complicated — tied in knots of ambivalence and befogged with uncertainties. Genius has the economy of a machine with a minimum of moving parts. Everything about Picasso came to bear when he drew a line.” ArtCriticismArt TheoryMonograph Author:Peter Schjeldahl
“Artists are people who are subject to irrational convictions of the sacred. Baudelaire said that an artist is a child who has acquired adult capacities and discipline. Art education should help build those capacities and that discipline without messing over the child.” PeopleShouldChildrenArtSaidHelpingArtistSubjectsDisciplineAdultsCapacitySacredConvictionInnocenceIrrationalArt EducationBaudelaire Author:Peter Schjeldahl
“Photography is the art of anticipation, not working with memories, but showing their formation. As such, it has relentlessly usurped imaginative and critical prerogatives of older, slower literature and handmade visual art.” ArtLiteratureMemoriesPhotographyCriticalVisualsAnticipationImaginativeFormationVisual ArtPrerogativeHandmade Author:Peter Schjeldahl
“The dominant problem of pictorial art since the nineteen-fifties is photography, and, by extension, film and video. The basilisk eye of the camera has withered the pride of handworked mediums. Painting survives on a case-by-case basis, its successes amounting to special exemptions from a verdict of history.” ArtProblemEyeFilmCasesSpecialPaintingPridePhotographyBasesCamerasVideoMediumsDominantExtensionsNineteenVerdictWitheredPictorialExemption Author:Peter Schjeldahl
“It's possible I am the only art critic that a lot of people read. And maybe Robert Hughes, if he's still writing.” PeopleIfsWritingArtStillsCriticsArt Critic Author:Peter Schjeldahl
“There's art that I would readily buy if I could afford it, and enjoy, but would never write about because it doesn't seem significant.” IfsWritingArtSeemsEnjoySignificantIf I Could Author:Peter Schjeldahl
“Minimalism itself had a very strong iconoclast impulse. You think of the sixties as loose and liberated, but in art it was actually quite the contrary.” ThinkingArtStrongContraryImpulseVery StrongSixtyLiberatedMinimalism Author:Peter Schjeldahl
“Art teachers are always the doormats of the previous generation.” ArtTeacherGenerationsPrevious GenerationsArt TeacherDoormat Author:Peter Schjeldahl
“Everything I've learned about art was (a) because I was actually interested, or (b) I was actually interested in covering my ass because of what I was writing about.” WritingArtAssI've LearnedCovering Author:Peter Schjeldahl
“Art is always subject to change in a moment by somebody who's strong enough to shed new light on it.” ArtEnoughMomentsLightStrongSubjectsArt IsShedStrong Enough Author:Peter Schjeldahl
“The experience of beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say. The artist's relation to the object of beauty, how the art makes that happen, is a whole other subject. Beauty is an event. Beauty is something that happens. There is no such thing as a beautiful object or a beautiful woman.” ArtWholeHappensEyeBeautifulArtistSubjectsEventsObjectsRelationBeautiful WomenBeholderEye Of The BeholderBeauty Is In The Eye Of The BeholderBeautiful Objects Author:Peter Schjeldahl
“With art criticism it's difficult to discuss beauty, to assess it, because there's always the possibility that we're insane.” ArtDifficultPossibilityCriticismInsane Author:Peter Schjeldahl
“My problem with political art is not that it's bad art necessarily, but that it is terrible politics.” ArtProblemPoliticalTerribleArt IsPolitical Art Author:Peter Schjeldahl
