Latest Jerry Saltz Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• Being critical of art is a way of showing art respect. No sports writer would say, "Well the Yankees had a great season this year." No food critic would get a bad meal and say, "Oh, it was so lovely." It always strikes me as odd when people say, "Why do you write negatively about any art?" I think that everybody has mixed feelings about everything - even Goya. I mean, I look at Rembrandt sometimes and I hear a voice in my head go, "It's pretty brown."

  Jerry Saltz

  Sports, Art, Writing

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• My job as art critic is to watch artists dance naked in public, and then I will, in turn, dance naked critically in public.

  Jerry Saltz

  Art, Artist, Critics

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I think that cynicism is the enemy. Cynicism thinks it knows how things work. "Oh yeah, you know how that works." I think uncertainty is the thing you have to keep embracing. You have to keep saying, I actually don't know, and going out is going to tell me something every time.

  Jerry Saltz

  Thinking, Enemy, Cynicism

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• There's a lot of hate mail from readers. There's hate mail, threats, stalkers... I think that I'm bulletproof every week when I've turned something in. I think, I'm a god.

  Jerry Saltz

  Hate, Thinking, Week

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• While it may be a really trying, weird time for the art world, I see good work all the time. If you just go around to that many galleries, and if you stay open, you're going to see work with enough energy and surprise. I don't think I've ever gone to the galleries without coming home thinking, Gee, I now know something I didn't know this morning.

  Jerry Saltz

  Art, Morning, Home

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I think that a lot of artists have succeeded in making what I might call "curator's art." Everybody's being accepted, and I always want to say, "Really? That's what you've come for? To make art that looks a lot like somebody else's art?" If I am thinking of somebody else's art in front of your art, that's a problem.

  Jerry Saltz

  Art, Thinking, Problem

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Any negative review you write, they'll say, "Oh, you're being so mean." I think the problem with a lot of criticism is that too many critics either write just description or they write in a Mandarin jargon that only a handful of people can understand, or they write happy criticis - everything is good that they write about. I think that's really not good. I think it's damaged a lot of our critical voices.

  Jerry Saltz

  Writing, Mean, Thinking

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• The reason I love blogs so much right now is that I am seeing more critical voices appear, and that's kind of thrilling. I think a lot of critics in their forties or even their thirties have had their voice scared or trained out of them by the academy. I have nothing against the academy. I think it's brilliant and fantastic, but I also think that it's become almost monolithic. The same way a lot of art looks the same, a lot of writing can sound the same and quotes the same theorists.

  Jerry Saltz

  Art, Writing, Thinking

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I just want to say one thing about the '70s. Enough with this purer, "It was a better time," business. Every time is about as polluted and needy and beautiful as most other times. I was around in the '70s, and people were just as ambitious and envious and filled with need and desire as they are today.

  Jerry Saltz

  Beautiful, People, Desire

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Any critic will tell you that there are a few dealers where you get a little bit scared to go into their gallery, and that's unfair to them, to yourself, to the reader, and to the artist. But I just want to look. When I'm done looking and writing, I love talking to art dealers. They are so alive and interesting and amazing - from Larry Gagosian all the way on down.

  Jerry Saltz

  Art, Writing, Interesting

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I don't want to hear at all what the artist thinks about his art. And I'm not writing for the artist. I'm writing for the reader, and I want to tell the reader what I think.

  Jerry Saltz

  Art, Writing, Artist

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I hate when dealers talk to me. I love dealers - they're some of our favorite people in the art world. But I hate if they do a sales pitch on me. I can't stand it.

  Jerry Saltz

  Art, Hate, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I think that writing is a process that tells you what you think. You sometimes actually don't know what your opinion is until you hear yourself trying to piece it out and have it make sense to you. The process itself is so bizarre and mysterious that you never know what it's going to tell you.

  Jerry Saltz

  Writing, Thinking, Trying

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Anybody who writes knows the horrible, wonderful, beautiful foulness that comes every week. A lot of moaning, screaming agony - "Oh my god, the deadline's coming."

  Jerry Saltz

  Beautiful, Writing, Wonderful

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• To me, the building [of Museum of Arts and Design]now looks like a lovely jewel box, and the tiled façade reminds me of a heat shield.

  Jerry Saltz

  Art, Museums, Jewels

• Maybe the museum [of Arts and Design ]needs to follow the advice of its acronym and not be afraid to go a little M.A.D.

  Jerry Saltz

  Art, Museums, Design

• Craft is not a category; it's a means. The folks running the museum [Museum of Arts and Design]are sharp, and they know this, but they are in a bind.

  Jerry Saltz

  Running, Art, Mean

• The debut show, “Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary,” is supposed to be about how artists reuse humble or unusual materials. There’s good work here, but much of what’s on view is actually more about obsession and repetition: a couch made out of 3,500 quarters, a necklace composed of 100 handgun triggers. The building, too, seems caught between wanting to be an object of decorative delectation and making an architectural statement.

  Jerry Saltz

  Art, Humble, Museums

  "Museum Date". Interview with Jerry Saltz, nymag.com. September 7, 2008.

• The place has had a super-conflicted relationship to its mission. In 1956, it opened as the Museum of Contemporary Crafts. Then in 1986 it had a midlife crisis and changed its name to the American Craft Museum. Then in 2002 the name changed again, this time to the Museum of Arts and Design. Maybe in 2025 the place will be called the Designatorium. The big problem with a museum of craft and design is that all art has craft and design.

  Jerry Saltz

  Art, Museums, Names

  "Museum Date". Interview with Justin Davidson, nymag.com. September 7, 2008.