Quotes by

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

Too many younger artists, critics, and curators are fetishizing the sixties, transforming the period into a deformed cult, a fantasy religion, a hip brand, and a crippling disease. – Jerry Saltz

One argument goes that recessions are good for female artists because when money flies out the window, women are allowed in the house. The other claims that when money ebbs, so do prospects for women. – Jerry Saltz

In the seventies, a group of American artists seized the means not of production but of reproduction. They tore apart visual culture at a time of no money, no market, and no one paying attention except other artists. Vietnam and Watergate had happened everything in America was being questioned. – Jerry Saltz

Artists working for other artists is all about knowing, learning, unlearning, initiating long-term artistic dialogues, making connections, creating covens, and getting temporary shelter from the storm. – Jerry Saltz

Our culture now wonderfully, alchemically transforms images and history into artistic material. The possibilities seem endless and wide open. – Jerry Saltz

The secret of food lies in memory – of thinking and then knowing what the taste of cinnamon or steak is. – Jerry Saltz

Abstraction brings the world into more complex, variable relations it can extract beauty, alternative topographies, ugliness, and intense actualities from seeming nothingness. – Jerry Saltz

Venice is the perfect place for a phase of art to die. No other city on earth embraces entropy quite like this magical floating mall. – Jerry Saltz