In art, scandal is a false narrative, a smoke screen that camouflages rather than reveals. When we don't know what we're seeing, we overreact.
Jerry SaltzI see 30 to 40 gallery shows a week, and no matter what kind of mood I'm 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 SaltzGiorgio Morandi's paintings make me think that artists may not totally choose, or even control, their subjects or style.
Jerry SaltzToo 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 SaltzI rage against Vincent van Gogh for needing to die at 37, after painting for only ten years.
Jerry SaltzAfter 1909, Monet drastically enlarged his brushstrokes, disintegrated his images, and broke through the taming constraints and delicacy of Impressionism for good. Nineteen gnarly paintings, starting in 1909 and carrying through his final seventeen years, finish off the notion that Monet went happily ever after into lily-land.
Jerry Saltz