MOST RECENT ARTICLES BY:

Jerry Saltz

@jerrysaltz

  1. art
    This Is the Saddest Picture I Have Ever SeenSandro Botticelli’s La Derelitta, a 15th-century tableau of hopelessness, feels especially resonant right now.
  2. first person
    My AppetitesJerry Saltz on eating and coping mechanisms, childhood and self-control, criticism, love, cancer and pandemics.
  3. art world
    The Last Days of the Art World … and Perhaps the First Days of a New OneThe art that emerges in the aftermath of this crisis will look very different. The rupture will be even more dramatic for galleries and museums.
  4. art
    Revisiting a 16th-Century Masterpiece of Mass Death From Self-Isolation in 2020Lately, I have spent so much time contemplating Pieter Bruegel’s “The Triumph of Death” I feel I have almost been living inside it.
  5. art
    The Art World Goes DarkThe pandemic has already darkened galleries, museums, and artists’ studios. What new forms will emerge from that darkness?
  6. books
    Can You Tell Anyone How to Be an Artist?Artist Laurie Simmons and our art critic Jerry Saltz (they’re old friends) talk about his new book.
  7. mexican muralists
    ‘Vida Americana’ Is the Most Relevant Show of the 21st CenturyThe contributions of Mexican muralists to modern art has been criminally neglected. This Whitney show begins the correction.
  8. art
    Donald Judd’s Minimalist Legacy Is All Around UsThe artist wanted his work totally empty. Which allowed the world to make anything out of it.
  9. art
    Jerry Saltz on Robert Andy Coombs’s Taboo-Breaking PhotosIn his work, you can see crescendos of pleasure, helplessness, and fear.
  10. losses
    No One Looked at New York Like Jason PolanHis was an art of taking pleasure in and appreciating the people, places, and things of the world.
  13. this! is! a ranking!
    The Name Doodles on Jeopardy’s Greatest of All Time Tournament, RankedAt least try a doodle, Brad Rutter.
  14. legacies
    John Baldessari Was Anything But BoringHis art was mystically simple: splendid when it was good, entrancing and gleeful when it was great.
  15. the lost canon
    Beauford Delaney Very Nearly Disappeared from Art HistoryAs a black, gay painter, even when he was celebrated, it was not as an equal to his contemporaries.
  16. best of 2019
    The 10 Best Art Shows of 2019From an art-world protest to a radically original self-portraitist.
  17. art
    Bill Traylor Deserves to Be Exalted Alongside Art’s Greatest NamesBorn into slavery, the artist’s story is a vision of American hell, but his work is transcendent and essential.
  18. art and architecture
    Two Critics — Art and Architecture — Compare Their New MoMA ExperiencesSaltz and Davidson on the newly expanded museum.
  19. art
    What Does the New MoMA Mean for Modernism? And What Was Modernism Anyway?The reimagined Museum of Modern Art tries to open itself up.
  20. art
    The Return of the Tribeca Art SceneEven though most artists can’t afford to live here, the galleries are back.
  21. fall preview 2019
    The Best and Biggest Art Shows to See to This FallFrom JR, Amy Sherald, Pope.L, and more.
  22. art
    A True Protest BiennialArtists are withdrawing from the Whitney left and right, making good on the radical politics of the show.
  25. art
    Why Did It Take So Long for the World to Recognize the Genius of Joseph Yoakum?In fairness, it took me a long while, too.
  26. art review
    Alexander Calder’s Circus is Back in TownThe artist’s wee sideshow is restored, and back at the Whitney.
  27. whitney biennial
    The New Whitney Biennial Made Me See Art History in a New WayThis show demonstrates unmistakably that subject matter is just as important as form.
  28. art
    For Decades, We All Ate Trump Up. Artist Andres Serrano Asks, ‘Why?’In a Chelsea bar, an artist created a Trump Junk Shop of the president’s 30-year rise to power — most of which passed without our really noticing.
  29. art
    A Radical New History of Queer Modernism, 1933–1950The bodies are sensual, on display, sexually presenting, in carnal states of being — all expressing an otherwise forbidden sexuality.
  30. art
    The Painting Jerry Saltz Can’t Stop Thinking AboutPaul Cadmus’s Herrin Massacre is an orgy of ferociousness.
  31. frieze
    For the First Time, an Art Fair Worked in Los AngelesWhat did Frieze Los Angeles have that no other fair ever has?
  32. obits
    In Remembrance of Artist Robert RymanHis all-white paintings seem as if they were fated to come into existence from the beginning of Modern Art.
  33. the art of anger
    Jim Carrey Isn’t Just a ‘Celebrity Artist’The fledgling political cartoonist walks Jerry Saltz through seven of his works.
  34. art
    Dana Schutz Takes Back Her Painterly NameHer canvasses are hyper-assertive, full of operatic grandeur, self-mocking turbulence, disfigured hideousness and the psychopathology of her figures.
  37. best of 2018
    Jerry Saltz’s 10 Best Art Shows of 2018Including an abstract pioneer and presidential portraiture.
  38. vulture guides
    Jerry Saltz’s 33 Rules for Being an ArtistHow to go from clueless amateur to generational talent (or at least live life a little more creatively).
  39. vulture guides
    Jerry Saltz’s Guide to the Met for the Crowd-AverseA nearly hidden entrance, the line-free underground cafeteria, and a jaw-dropping yet somehow always deserted room.
  40. clarifications
    Everything You Know About Vincent van Gogh Is WrongAt Eternity’s Gate director Julian Schnabel addresses a few common myths about the troubled artist.
  41. reunions
    Willem Dafoe Sits Down With His Old Friend Jerry Saltz to Talk van GoghAfter decades apart, the two reunite to discuss Dafoe’s riveting performance in Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate, about the artist’s last days.
  42. appreciations
    Everything You Wanted to Know About Andy Warhol in Eight WorksAn appreciation of an American revolutionary, ahead of the Whitney’s can’t-miss new retrospective.
  43. art
    This Long-Running MoMA Show Might Restore Your Faith in UtopianismFinding solace in Bodys Isek Kingelez.
  44. auctions
    An Artwork Made by Artificial Intelligence Just Sold for $400,000The painting fetched 40 times its estimate. Why?
  45. art world
    How Does the Art World Live With Itself? I Live and Breathe It and I’m Not Sure.I used to think the art world was at war with money, and vice versa. I’m starting to think we’re in a new equilibrium, defined by ambivalence.
  46. obituary
    Phyllis Kind, Powerhouse Gallerist, 1933–2018Phyllis Kind, art-dealer extraordinaire, changed my life. Twice.
  49. vulture recommends
    The Art Books Jerry Saltz Is Loving This FallBeautiful volumes about often under-celebrated artists, from groundbreaking Delacroix to Hilma af Klint, pioneer of Abstraction.
  50. art review
    What Was Delacroix Doing? A Relic of One Era, He Somehow Invented Many Others.Somehow his infuriatingly messy paintings point directly to Cézanne, Manet, Renoir, van Gogh, Matisse, de Kooning, Marlene Dumas, and Kara Walker.
  51. fall preview 2018
    The Future Belonged to Hilma af KlintThe 20th-century mystic and pioneering abstract painter finally gets taken seriously at the Guggenheim.
  52. art
    David Wojnarowicz’s Whitney Retrospective Is Overdue, But Couldn’t Be TimelierThis is an astonishingly relevant, urgently important show that reflects on what it means to be human in a time of encroaching political darkness.
  53. Why Is the Met’s New Show About the Body in Art History So Stultifying and Dull?This is what happens with an excess of hyperrealism.
  54. 3 Sentence Reviews of Marlene Dumas, Dan Colen, and 11 Other Art-World Big ShotsLet’s read the tea leaves on the upper end of the food chain.
  55. art
    Huma Bhabha’s New Installation at the Met Brings You Into the Realm of GodsThis is among the best Met roof sculpture installations since the program began in 1987.
  56. Jerry Saltz: Break the Art FairAs a system, art fairs are like America: They don’t work and no one knows how to fix them.
  57. art review
    Three-Sentence Reviews: John Bradford, David Hockney, and 11 More ShowsIncluding the new home of White Columns.
  58. vulture lists
    The Stoner Canon: 101 Trippy Movies, Albums, Books, TV Shows, and MoreThe ultimate guide to experiencing the high.
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