Jerry Saltz Author Archive
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Jerry Saltz

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Jerry Saltz, New York’s senior art critic, is the author of the New York Times best seller How To Be an Artist and has won two ASME awards and the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism.

  1. art
    Bill Traylor Deserves to Be Exalted Alongside Art’s Greatest NamesBorn into slavery, the artist’s story is a vision of American hell, but his work is transcendent and essential.
  2. art and architecture
    Two Critics — Art and Architecture — Compare Their New MoMA ExperiencesSaltz and Davidson on the newly expanded museum.
  3. art
    What Does the New MoMA Mean for Modernism? And What Was Modernism Anyway?The reimagined Museum of Modern Art tries to open itself up.
  4. art
    The Return of the Tribeca Art SceneEven though most artists can’t afford to live here, the galleries are back.
  5. fall preview 2019
    The Best and Biggest Art Shows to See to This FallFrom JR, Amy Sherald, Pope.L, and more.
  6. art
    A True Protest BiennialArtists are withdrawing from the Whitney left and right, making good on the radical politics of the show.
  7. art
    Why Did It Take So Long for the World to Recognize the Genius of Joseph Yoakum?In fairness, it took me a long while, too.
  8. art review
    Alexander Calder’s Circus is Back in TownThe artist’s wee sideshow is restored, and back at the Whitney.
  9. whitney biennial
    The New Whitney Biennial Made Me See Art History in a New WayThis show demonstrates unmistakably that subject matter is just as important as form.
  10. art
    For Decades, We All Ate Trump Up. Artist Andres Serrano Asks, ‘Why?’In a Chelsea bar, an artist created a Trump Junk Shop of the president’s 30-year rise to power — most of which passed without our really noticing.
  11. art
    A Radical New History of Queer Modernism, 1933–1950The bodies are sensual, on display, sexually presenting, in carnal states of being — all expressing an otherwise forbidden sexuality.
  12. art
    The Painting Jerry Saltz Can’t Stop Thinking AboutPaul Cadmus’s Herrin Massacre is an orgy of ferociousness.
  13. frieze
    For the First Time, an Art Fair Worked in Los AngelesWhat did Frieze Los Angeles have that no other fair ever has?
  14. obits
    In Remembrance of Artist Robert RymanHis all-white paintings seem as if they were fated to come into existence from the beginning of Modern Art.
  15. the art of anger
    Jim Carrey Isn’t Just a ‘Celebrity Artist’The fledgling political cartoonist walks Jerry Saltz through seven of his works.
  16. art
    Dana Schutz Takes Back Her Painterly NameHer canvasses are hyper-assertive, full of operatic grandeur, self-mocking turbulence, disfigured hideousness and the psychopathology of her figures.
  17. best of 2018
    Jerry Saltz’s 10 Best Art Shows of 2018Including an abstract pioneer and presidential portraiture.
  18. vulture guides
    Jerry Saltz’s 33 Rules for Being an ArtistHow to go from clueless amateur to generational talent (or at least live life a little more creatively).
  19. vulture guides
    Jerry Saltz’s Guide to the Met for the Crowd-AverseA nearly hidden entrance, the line-free underground cafeteria, and a jaw-dropping yet somehow always deserted room.
  20. clarifications
    Everything You Know About Vincent van Gogh Is WrongAt Eternity’s Gate director Julian Schnabel addresses a few common myths about the troubled artist.
  21. reunions
    Willem Dafoe Sits Down With His Old Friend Jerry Saltz to Talk van GoghAfter decades apart, the two reunite to discuss Dafoe’s riveting performance in Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate, about the artist’s last days.
  22. appreciations
    Everything You Wanted to Know About Andy Warhol in Eight WorksAn appreciation of an American revolutionary, ahead of the Whitney’s can’t-miss new retrospective.
  23. art
    This Long-Running MoMA Show Might Restore Your Faith in UtopianismFinding solace in Bodys Isek Kingelez.
  24. auctions
    An Artwork Made by Artificial Intelligence Just Sold for $400,000The painting fetched 40 times its estimate. Why?
  25. art world
    How Does the Art World Live With Itself? I Live and Breathe It and I’m Not Sure.I used to think the art world was at war with money, and vice versa. I’m starting to think we’re in a new equilibrium, defined by ambivalence.
  26. obituary
    Phyllis Kind, Powerhouse Gallerist, 1933–2018Phyllis Kind, art-dealer extraordinaire, changed my life. Twice.
  27. vulture recommends
    The Art Books Jerry Saltz Is Loving This FallBeautiful volumes about often under-celebrated artists, from groundbreaking Delacroix to Hilma af Klint, pioneer of Abstraction.
  28. art review
    What Was Delacroix Doing? A Relic of One Era, He Somehow Invented Many Others.Somehow his infuriatingly messy paintings point directly to Cézanne, Manet, Renoir, van Gogh, Matisse, de Kooning, Marlene Dumas, and Kara Walker.
  29. fall preview 2018
    The Future Belonged to Hilma af KlintThe 20th-century mystic and pioneering abstract painter finally gets taken seriously at the Guggenheim.
  30. art
    David Wojnarowicz’s Whitney Retrospective Is Overdue, But Couldn’t Be TimelierThis is an astonishingly relevant, urgently important show that reflects on what it means to be human in a time of encroaching political darkness.
  31. Why Is the Met’s New Show About the Body in Art History So Stultifying and Dull?This is what happens with an excess of hyperrealism.
  32. 3 Sentence Reviews of Marlene Dumas, Dan Colen, and 11 Other Art-World Big ShotsLet’s read the tea leaves on the upper end of the food chain.
  33. art
    Huma Bhabha’s New Installation at the Met Brings You Into the Realm of GodsThis is among the best Met roof sculpture installations since the program began in 1987.
  34. Jerry Saltz: Break the Art FairAs a system, art fairs are like America: They don’t work and no one knows how to fix them.
  35. art review
    Three-Sentence Reviews: John Bradford, David Hockney, and 11 More ShowsIncluding the new home of White Columns.
  36. art review
    Losing Myself in the Paintings of Facebook-Educated Matthew WongAn impressive painter’s debut show at Karma gallery.
  37. art review
    Cy Twombly and the Transporting Power of Art That Barely Uses the Tools of ArtScribbles, jots, smears, and smudges that make my knees buckle.
  38. The New Astor Place Rhino Sculpture Is a Kitschy MonstrosityIt helps proves my theory that 95 percent of public sculpture is crap.
  39. art
    This Nobel Laureate in Medicine Belongs Next to Michelangelo As a DraftsmanSantiago Ramón y Cajal is the only Nobel Prize winner in history — in physiology and medicine in 1906 — to also be a truly great artist.
  40. art
    Reuse, Reinvent, Reimagine: The Brilliance of Hans-Peter FeldmannToday, the pioneer of artistic appropriation can be regarded as Instagram before Instagram.
  41. Antiguan Master Frank Walter Is a Revelation at ADAAWalter never found the recognition he was looking for; he yearned to have his work seen and acknowledged in his lifetime.
  42. art
    These Trump Paintings, by Peter Saul, Are a Highlight of the ADAA FairIn spite of claims otherwise, Saul does not make “political art.”
  43. The New Museum’s ‘I Am More Woke Than You’ TriennialBut we must not blame artists for this curatorial belaboring.
  44. art
    The Obamas’ Official Portraits Rise to the OccasionKehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald join the canon.
  45. LaToya Ruby Frazier Is a Goya of Black AmericaIn her photographs, I see the rotten social malignancy that perpetuates entrenched racial discrimination.
  46. Imagining Donald Trump Sitting on Maurizio Cattelan’s Solid-Gold ToiletWhen I first saw Cattelan’s toilet I considered it an obvious comment on the market. Yet at the White House it would have much more charged meanings.
  47. Trump’s Border Wall Prototypes Are a Kind of National Monument to NativismWhen you look at the eight prototypes as art, what do you see?
  48. art and money
    The Met’s Admission-Fee Hike Points at a Much Bigger ProblemThe newly fortified ticket price is a drag. But what got us here is worse.
  49. Wherever the New Artforum Is Heading, I’m Along for the RideIn David Velasco, the magazine has a new editor, new energy, and new purpose. Thank God.
  50. 11,000 People Demanded the Met Remove This Painting. They Aren’t Going To. Good.In many ways it is a sign of art’s complexity that it generate a wide variety of responses.
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