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...of photo, but just find one. Then sit down and write page's worth about what this photo makes you think and feel, what memories it reminds you of."
I admit, shamefully and 12 years on, that my mode of writing and talking about art, whether in undergrad crits or glossy art mags, has wavered little from that first, simple directive: look at the work; if you see something you respond to, sink into it, write what it makes you think about, what memories, feelings and associations it conjures. While I've studied art history a bit, I have, for fear of obscuring honest personal reactions, not used it much.
Reading Jerry Saltz's writing, however, is the first thing that has made me want to know, and show, my art history better. That's because Saltz, in his witty, direct and, unsurprisingly, twice-Pulitzer-nominated prose, does something most critics find disturbingly difficult: he shows it's possible to stay close to the core of one's emotional and intellectual reactions to art while recognizing its context.
Lately, Saltz has had as much Gawker-esque attention as any critic of our era can get. In April, he left the Village Voice, where he'd written since 1998, for New York magazine. Though the shift seemed amicable, it offers a handy entry point for interviewing Saltz about the life experiences squeezed between his spare Web bio lines, which note that, in addition to having been an advisor on a Whitney Biennial, he has been a truck driver and an artist.
The resulting discussion (personal prying weathered graciously by Saltz at my behest) gives some sense of where one of our era's best art critics has come from, where, to his mind, the New York art world is going and whether anyone would travel across water to see it.
Q: So, it's not immediately apparent how one gets from Figure Drawing II and lot lizard-type environs to, say, snagging a Pulitzer nom. How did you get started?
A: Well, I don't think anybody when they're a kid raises their hand in class and says, "Ooooh, I...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos
have been removed from this article.
More articles from C: International Contemporary Art
Notes on the second Moscow biennale of contemporary art, or how I lear..., June 22, 2007
Katja Host: The Lonely Crowd., June 22, 2007
Lucy Pullen: New Knowledge., June 22, 2007
Rodney LaTourelle: In the Absence of Unambiguous Criteria., June 22, 2007
Material Overtures., June 22, 2007
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