This Is the Saddest Picture I Have Ever Seen Sandro Botticelli’s La Derelitta , a 15th-century tableau of hopelessness, feels especially resonant right now.
first person
May 12, 2020
My Appetites Jerry Saltz on eating and coping mechanisms, childhood and self-control, criticism, love, cancer and pandemics.
The Last Days of the Art World … and Perhaps the First Days of a New One The art that emerges in the aftermath of this crisis will look very different. The rupture will be even more dramatic for galleries and museums.
Revisiting a 16th-Century Masterpiece of Mass Death From Self-Isolation in 2020 Lately, I have spent so much time contemplating Pieter Bruegel’s “The Triumph of Death” I feel I have almost been living inside it.
The Art World Goes Dark The pandemic has already darkened galleries, museums, and artists’ studios. What new forms will emerge from that darkness?
Can You Tell Anyone How to Be an Artist? Artist Laurie Simmons and our art critic Jerry Saltz (they’re old friends) talk about his new book.
mexican muralists
Feb. 24, 2020
‘Vida Americana’ Is the Most Relevant Show of the 21st Century The contributions of Mexican muralists to modern art has been criminally neglected. This Whitney show begins the correction.
Donald Judd’s Minimalist Legacy Is All Around Us The artist wanted his work totally empty. Which allowed the world to make anything out of it.
30,000 Ways to See New York Drawings from the final year of Jason Polan’s “Every Person in New York” project.
Jerry Saltz on Robert Andy Coombs’s Taboo-Breaking Photos In his work, you can see crescendos of pleasure, helplessness, and fear.
No One Looked at New York Like Jason Polan His was an art of taking pleasure in and appreciating the people, places, and things of the world.
this! is! a ranking!
Jan. 14, 2020
John Baldessari Was Anything But Boring His art was mystically simple: splendid when it was good, entrancing and gleeful when it was great.
the lost canon
Jan. 6, 2020
Beauford Delaney Very Nearly Disappeared from Art History As a black, gay painter, even when he was celebrated, it was not as an equal to his contemporaries.
best of 2019
Dec. 12, 2019
The 10 Best Art Shows of 2019 From an art-world protest to a radically original self-portraitist.
Bill Traylor Deserves to Be Exalted Alongside Art’s Greatest Names Born into slavery, the artist’s story is a vision of American hell, but his work is transcendent and essential.
art and architecture
Oct. 25, 2019
The Return of the Tribeca Art Scene Even though most artists can’t afford to live here, the galleries are back.
fall preview 2019
Sept. 11, 2019
A True Protest Biennial Artists are withdrawing from the Whitney left and right, making good on the radical politics of the show.
Alexander Calder’s Circus is Back in Town The artist’s wee sideshow is restored, and back at the Whitney.
whitney biennial
May 14, 2019
The New Whitney Biennial Made Me See Art History in a New Way This show demonstrates unmistakably that subject matter is just as important as form.
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.
A Radical New History of Queer Modernism, 1933–1950 The bodies are sensual, on display, sexually presenting, in carnal states of being — all expressing an otherwise forbidden sexuality.
The Painting Jerry Saltz Can’t Stop Thinking About Paul Cadmus’s Herrin Massacre is an orgy of ferociousness.
For the First Time, an Art Fair Worked in Los Angeles What did Frieze Los Angeles have that no other fair ever has?
In Remembrance of Artist Robert Ryman His all-white paintings seem as if they were fated to come into existence from the beginning of Modern Art.
the art of anger
Jan. 25, 2019
Jim Carrey Isn’t Just a ‘Celebrity Artist’ The fledgling political cartoonist walks Jerry Saltz through seven of his works.
Dana Schutz Takes Back Her Painterly Name Her canvasses are hyper-assertive, full of operatic grandeur, self-mocking turbulence, disfigured hideousness and the psychopathology of her figures.
best of 2018
Dec. 6, 2018
Jerry Saltz’s 10 Best Art Shows of 2018 Including an abstract pioneer and presidential portraiture.
vulture guides
Nov. 27, 2018
Jerry Saltz’s 33 Rules for Being an Artist How to go from clueless amateur to generational talent (or at least live life a little more creatively).
vulture guides
Nov. 15, 2018
Jerry Saltz’s Guide to the Met for the Crowd-Averse A nearly hidden entrance, the line-free underground cafeteria, and a jaw-dropping yet somehow always deserted room.
clarifications
Nov. 12, 2018
Everything You Know About Vincent van Gogh Is Wrong At Eternity’s Gate director Julian Schnabel addresses a few common myths about the troubled artist.
Willem Dafoe Sits Down With His Old Friend Jerry Saltz to Talk van Gogh After 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.
appreciations
Nov. 8, 2018
Everything You Wanted to Know About Andy Warhol in Eight Works An appreciation of an American revolutionary, ahead of the Whitney’s can’t-miss new retrospective.
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.
Phyllis Kind, Powerhouse Gallerist, 1933–2018 Phyllis Kind, art-dealer extraordinaire, changed my life. Twice.
vulture recommends
Sept. 21, 2018
The Art Books Jerry Saltz Is Loving This Fall Beautiful volumes about often under-celebrated artists, from groundbreaking Delacroix to Hilma af Klint, pioneer of Abstraction.
art review
Sept. 20, 2018
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.
fall preview 2018
Sept. 6, 2018
The Future Belonged to Hilma af Klint The 20th-century mystic and pioneering abstract painter finally gets taken seriously at the Guggenheim.
David Wojnarowicz’s Whitney Retrospective Is Overdue, But Couldn’t Be Timelier This is an astonishingly relevant, urgently important show that reflects on what it means to be human in a time of encroaching political darkness.
Huma Bhabha’s New Installation at the Met Brings You Into the Realm of Gods This is among the best Met roof sculpture installations since the program began in 1987.
Jerry Saltz: Break the Art Fair As a system, art fairs are like America: They don’t work and no one knows how to fix them.
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