Jerry Saltz

I love art dealers. In some ways, theyre my favorite people in the art world. Really. I love that they put their money where their taste is, create their own aesthetic universes, support artists, employ people, and do all of this while letting us see art for free. Many are visionaries. – Jerry Saltz

The art world is an all-volunteer force. No one has to be here if he or she doesnt want to be, and we should be associating with anyone we want to. – Jerry Saltz

The giant white cube is now impeding rather than enhancing the rhythms of art. It preprograms a viewers journey, shifts the emphasis from process to product, and lacks individuality and openness. Its not that art should be seen only in rutty bombed-out environments, but it should seem alive. – Jerry Saltz

I see 30 to 40 gallery shows a week, and no matter what kind of mood Im in, no matter how bad the art is, I almost always feel better afterward. I can learn as much from bad art as from good. – Jerry Saltz

Wolfgang Tillmans stunning large-scale pictures, being shown for the first time, were so offhand I failed to see them as art. – Jerry Saltz

Its art that pushes against psychological and social expectations, that tries to transform decay into something generative, that is replicative in a baroque way, that isnt about progress, and wants to – as Walt Whitman put it – contain multitudes. – Jerry Saltz

Jeffrey Deitch is the Jeff Koons of art dealers. Not because hes the biggest, best, or the richest of his kind. But because in some ways hes the weirdest (which is saying a lot when youre talking about the wonderful, wicked, lovable, and annoying creatures known as art dealers). – Jerry Saltz

Theres 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

When money and hype recede from the art world, one thing I wont miss will be what curator Francesco Bonami calls the Eventocracy. All this flashy art-fair art and those highly produced space-eating spectacles and installations wow you for a minute until you move on to the next adrenaline event. – Jerry Saltz

Many say an art dealer running a museum is a conflict of interest. But maybe the art world has lived an artificial or unintentional lie all of these years when it comes to conflicts of interest. – Jerry Saltz

Not to say people shouldnt get rich from art. I adore the alchemy wherein artists who cast a complex spell make rich people give them their money. (Just writing it makes me cackle.) But too many artists have been making money without magic. – Jerry Saltz

It took me twenty years to get Steven Parrinos work. From the time I first saw his art, in the mid-eighties, I almost always dismissed it as mannered, Romantic, formulaic, conceptualist-formalist heavy-metal boy-art abstraction. – Jerry Saltz

Of course art world ethics are important. But museums are no purer than any other institution or business. Academics arent necessarily more high-minded than gallerists. – Jerry Saltz

These days, newish art can be priced between $10,000 and $25,000. When I tell artists that a new painting by a newish artist should go for around $1,200, they look at me like Im a flesh-eating virus. – Jerry Saltz

Many art-worlders have an if-you-say-so approach to art: Everyone is so scared of missing out on the next hot artist that its never clear whether people are liking work because they like it or because other people do. Everyone is keeping up with the Joneses, and there are more Joneses than ever. – Jerry Saltz

In art, scandal is a false narrative, a smoke screen that camouflages rather than reveals. When we dont know what were seeing, we overreact. – Jerry Saltz

Mission accomplished. The Museum of Modern Arts wide-open, tall-ceilinged, super-reinforced second floor was for all intents and purposes built to accommodate monumental installations and gigantic sculptures, should the need arise. It has arisen. – Jerry Saltz

Anyone who relishes art should love the extraordinary diversity and psychic magic of our art galleries. Theres likely more combined square footage for the showing of art on one New York block – West 24th Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues – than in all of Amsterdams or Hamburgs galleries. – Jerry Saltz

Those who love him love that he sells the most art they take it as a point of faith that this proves Kinkade is the best. But his fans dont only rely on this supply-and-demand justification. They go back to values. – Jerry Saltz

Yes, 85 percent of the art you see isnt any good. But everyone has a different opinion about which 85 percent is bad. That in turn creates fantastically unstable interplay and argument. – Jerry Saltz