Art Is Life

September 5, 2022
Pulitzer Prize–winning art critic Saltz (How to Be an Artist) lays out a smorgasbord of more than 80 of his provocative articles and essays from outlets such as the Village Voice and New York magazine. Penetrating insights are offered on an impressive range of artists, from Georgia O’Keeffe (who should be freed from the “erotic ghetto”) to George W. Bush, Cindy Sherman (Saltz is a convert), Thomas Kinkade, Norman Rockwell (Saltz is not a fan), and Helen Frankenthaler. Trenchant opinions on museums (now increasingly “platforms for spectacle”), gallery attendants (the unsung heroes of the art world ), auction houses (“nothing to do with quality”), “power broker” curators, and many other aspects of the constantly evolving art world are shot through. Highlights include a detailed analysis of Andy Warhol’s place in contemporary art and a thoughtful piece entitled “What the Hell Was Modernism?” Saltz responds to art intellectually and aesthetically, but also viscerally and emotionally; art, to him, is indeed life in all its abundance and diversity. And his prose holds up: eminently accessible, often humorous (he is a master of the sharp parenthetical aside), and stimulating. The art world is convoluted, but Saltz cuts right through it. Agent: Chris Calhoun, Chris Calhoun Agency.

September 15, 2022
How artists respond to and influence our world. In this follow-up to How To Be an Artist, Saltz, senior art critic for New York magazine, celebrates the works of several dozen artists, most of whose careers fall within the last half-century. The author also offers extended reflections on the commercial dynamics of the art world and his own career as an artist and critic. The book, which includes many of his previously published writings from the late 1990s until the present, is divided into sections based on three recent watershed moments in American history--9/11 and the elections of Barack Obama and Donald Trump--and their intersections with the art world. Saltz consistently frames his consideration of particular artists in relation to these events or the broader political climate they helped form, and he makes a persuasive case that we might profitably interpret contemporary history through--and find profound consolation and spiritual guidance in--the creations of gifted visual artists. Among the artists the author champions are prominent figures such as Jeff Koons, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and Willem de Kooning as well as lesser-known ones such as David Wojnarowicz, Laurel Nakadate, Dana Schutz, Katherine Bernhardt, and Joseph E. Yoakum. Saltz is particularly attentive to those artists who are "revisiting and reinventing cultural norms enforced by five hundred years of colonialism," and he provides trenchant commentary on the racial and gender politics of the contemporary art world. At his best, his discussions of individual works are informed, illuminating, and accessible, as in his lengthy treatment of Th�odore G�ricault's The Raft of the Medusa and its enduring aesthetic power. Saltz also covers an assortment of related topics, including the politics of auction culture, the paintings of George W. Bush, the cave drawings at Niaux, and the evolving censorship practices of Facebook and Instagram. A sweeping survey and fervent defense of the value of art in modern life.

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October 15, 2022
In the resounding introductory essay to this collection of spirited and enlightening critiques spanning the last two decades, Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Saltz describes the twenty-first century as a "continual state of emergency" that has utterly transformed the art world. Given to making big pronouncements and backing them up with vigor, rigor, and delight, he celebrates the end of white and male domination in major museum exhibitions and illuminates the work of women artists and artists of color, including Kara Walker and Kerry James Marshall. Saltz plumbs art history with equal verve, discovering fresh revelations in Paleolithic cave paintings and in the creations of Hilma af Klint, Beauford Delaney, and Cy Twombly. He asks "What the Hell Was Modernism?" and considers the immense impact of social media on visual arts. Two extended personal essays illuminate his painful childhood, struggles as an artist (the source of his respectful critical receptivity), and unexpected and cherished life as a New York art critic. "I love to look," Saltz declares. "At anything. Any time." His writings about what he sees are delectable and invaluable.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.