The art world is molting - some would say melting. Galleries are closing museums are scaling back. Jerry Saltz on art
Almost all institutions own a lot more art than they can ever show, much of it revealing for its timeliness, genius, or sheer weirdness. Jerry Saltz on art
The forties, seventies, and the nineties, when money was scarce, were great periods, when the art world retracted but it was also reborn. Jerry Saltz on art
Robert Rauschenberg was not a giant of American art he was the giant. No American created so many aesthetic openings for so many artists. Jerry Saltz on art
The Met is not only the finest encyclopedic museum of art in the United States it is arguably the finest anywhere. Jerry Saltz on art
Money is something that can be measured art is not. It's all subjective. Jerry Saltz on art
Contrary to popular opinion, things don't go stale particularly fast in the art world. Jerry Saltz on art
Art usually only makes the news in America when the subject is money. Jerry Saltz on art
The price of a work of art has nothing to do with what the work of art is, can do, or is worth on an existential, alchemical level. Jerry Saltz on art
To me, nothing in the art world is neutral. The idea of 'disinterest' strikes me as boring, dishonest, dubious, and uninteresting. Jerry Saltz on art
The art world is an all-volunteer force. No one has to be here if he or she doesn't want to be, and we should be associating with anyone we want to. Jerry Saltz on art
Wolfgang Tillman's stunning large-scale pictures, being shown for the first time, were so offhand I failed to see them as art. Jerry Saltz on art
Galleries began growing in both number and size in the late seventies, when artists who worked in lofts wanted to exhibit their work in spaces similar to the ones the art was made in. Jerry Saltz on art
There's 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 on art
First let me report that the art in the Barnes Collection has never looked better. My trips to the old Barnes were always amazing, but except on the sunniest days, you could barely see the art. The building always felt pushed beyond its capacity. Jerry Saltz on art
Not to say people shouldn't 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 on art
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 I'm a flesh-eating virus. Jerry Saltz on art
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 Saltz on art
Damien Hirst is the Elvis of the English art world, its ayatollah, deliverer, and big-thinking entrepreneurial potty-mouthed prophet and front man. Hirst synthesizes punk, Pop Art, Jeff Koons, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Bacon, and Catholicism. Jerry Saltz on art