1797 quotes by critics for you to enjoy

I see artists bored by light-without-heat, irked at gigantic galleries' pushing out art-as-product, leaving behind the over determined for the undetermined, guided by interior voices and bringing us out of a long tunnel to new blueness. Jerry Saltz

Interior Long Guided Out Gigantic Bored See Determined Voices Pushing Over New Leaving Behind Artists Tunnel Galleries Us Bringing

Art is good, bad, boring, ugly, useful to us or not. Jerry Saltz

Art Good Ugly Bad Boring Us Useful

I see around 100 shows a month, going from Niketown-size palaces where you feel like yelling, to storefronts in Bushwick. Each has to pay the bills; keep artists happy; and cope with collectors (oy!), curators (ay-yi-yi), critics (woo-hoo!), and occasionally plumbers. That their fiscal life often hangs in the balance only adds to the energy. Jerry Saltz

Life You Balance Happy Energy Pay Month Adds Collectors Critics See Only Feel Like Occasionally Around Fiscal Yelling Going Often Artists Where Bills Shows Each Keep Palaces Cope

Yes, 85 percent of the art you see isn't 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

Art Good You Argument Everyone Bad See About Percent Unstable Opinion Yes Any Different Which Turn Creates

The greatest work of art about New York? The question seems nebulous. The city's magic and majesty are distilled in the photographs of Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand. Jerry Saltz

Work Art Distilled City Photographs Magic About Seems Majesty New Greatest Question York New York Paul Strand

Abstract Expressionism - the first American movement to have a worldwide influence - was remarkably short-lived: It heated up after World War II and was all but done for by 1960 (although visit any art school today and you'll find a would-be Willem de Kooning). Jerry Saltz

Today War Art You World School First Worldwide Visit Would-Be Find Remarkably Abstract Although Up Art School American Heated Any Done Movement Influence After Short-Lived Expressionism World War World War II

My culture-deprived, aspirational mother dragged me once a month from our northern suburb - where the word art never came up - to the Art Institute of Chicago. I hated it. Jerry Saltz

Art Me Mother Word Our Once Month Hated Never Institute Came Chicago Up Northern Where Suburb Dragged

I'm noticing a new approach to art making in recent museum and gallery shows. It flickered into focus at the New Museum's 'Younger Than Jesus' last year and ran through the Whitney Biennial, and I'm seeing it blossom and bear fruit at 'Greater New York,' MoMA P.S. 1's twice-a-decade extravaganza of emerging local talent. Jerry Saltz

Art Fruit Focus Year Approach Local Ran Seeing Emerging Bear Through New Talent New Approach Greater Making Blossom Than York New York Younger Gallery Noticing Whitney Shows Jesus Last Recent Museum Last Year

Turns out Picasso's passion for uncertainty, mystery, and the thrill of life never ended. Jerry Saltz

Life Passion Out Thrill Uncertainty Mystery Never Picasso Ended Turns

When I criticize Joseph Beuys or Francis Bacon, nobody calls those opinions anti-male. Putting female artists or their subject matter off-limits is itself sexist and limiting. Jerry Saltz

Matter Francis Francis Bacon Those Bacon Criticize Sexist Joseph Putting Nobody Calls Female Female Artists Opinions Limiting Subject Subject Matter Itself Artists

Billions of photos are shot every year, and about the toughest thing a photographer can do is invent an original, deeply personal, instantly recognizable visual style. In the early nineties, Wolfgang Tillmans did just that, transforming himself into a new kind of artist-photographer of modern life. Jerry Saltz

Life Invent Style Year Every Nineties Recognizable Kind Photographer Visual Photos About Toughest Instantly New Himself New Kind Did Personal Modern Just Modern Life Transforming Shot Billions Original Deeply Thing Early

As I went through 'This Progress,' one of two performance pieces by Tino Sehgal that transform Frank Lloyd Wright's emptied-out spiral into a dreamy Socratic-purgatorial journey, the museum literally fell away. I was suspended in some weird nonspace. Jerry Saltz

Journey Progress Frank Some Spiral Wright Through Weird Performance Fell Pieces Suspended Literally Transform Away Two Museum

Put yourself in the position of an up-and-coming artist living in early-sixteenth-century Italy. Now imagine trying to distinguish yourself from the other artists living in your town: Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo, or Titian. Is it any wonder that the Italian High Renaissance lasted only 30 years? Jerry Saltz

Yourself Living Lasted Other Distinguish Raphael High Only Put Town Renaissance Italian Years Italy Up-And-Coming Wonder Michelangelo Trying Any Artist Artists Leonardo Your Now Imagine Position

Although I adore the Italian High Renaissance, I'd rather look at Mannerism. The former is ordered, integrated, otherworldly, and grandiose; it leaves you feeling hungry for something flawed and of-the-flesh. Jerry Saltz

You Feeling Hungry High Something Rather Adore Look Renaissance Although Leaves Integrated Italian Ordered Former Flawed Grandiose

Few contemporary artists mined the space between the ordinary and the strange better than Orozco did. Jerry Saltz

Strange Better Space Few Between Contemporary Than Did Artists Ordinary

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

Good Women Money Argument Other Claims Out Window Allowed Prospects House Because Female Female Artists Women Are Goes Artists Flies

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

Time Culture Money Watergate Group Other Market Everything Seventies Visual Seized Except Had No-One Attention Questioned America American Artists Being Happened Reproduction Apart Vietnam Means Production Paying

Pictures artists staged their own images or copied or cut out others already in existence. The viewer took them in separately, in sometimes paradoxical waves: an original image, then the manipulations of it, then the places where image and idea intersected. This created a crucial perceptual glitch that irony and understanding filled. Jerry Saltz

Sometimes Understanding Own Others Took Waves Out Paradoxical Perceptual Crucial Idea Pictures Existence Irony Artists Where Staged Places Them Cut Then Created Separately Viewer Original Filled Copied Image Images

Galleries needn't be exactly like White Columns purely because times are bad again. But the idea of this special space could - should - help shape what comes next. Jerry Saltz

Space White Bad Exactly Purely Could Shape Columns Idea Like Because Times Again Galleries Next Should Help Special

Much good art got made while money ruled; I like a lot of it, and hardship and poverty aren't virtues. The good news is that, since almost no one will be selling art, artists - especially emerging ones - won't have to think about turning out a consistent style or creating a brand. They'll be able to experiment as much as they want. Jerry Saltz

Art Good News Money Will Good News Made Poverty Style Experiment Think Virtues Ruled Consistent Out Able About Emerging No-One Almost Since Like Got Lot Selling Brand Artists Want While Much Turning Creating Good Art Hardship

The very paradigm of revolution, of right versus wrong, good versus bad, is a relic with no bearing on the present. Yet artists, exhibitions, and curators valorize the sixties. People who wrote about these artists 30 years ago still write about them in the same ways, often for the same magazines. Jerry Saltz

Good People Revolution Ways Paradigm Relic Bad Magazines About Bearing Write Wrong Wrote Still Exhibitions Years Years Ago Versus Very Same Often Artists Sixties Them Who Right Present

While a large segment of the art world has obsessed over a tiny number of stars and their prices, an aesthetic shift has been occurring. It's not a movement - movements are more sure of themselves. It's a change of mood or expectation, a desire for art to be more than showy effects, big numbers, and gamesmanship. Jerry Saltz

Art Change World Big Expectation Stars Mood Has-Been More Segment Prices Obsessed Over Sure Aesthetic Shift Been Effects Art World Than Tiny Movement Movements While Themselves Large Showy Desire Number Numbers

Quotes by Critics