The Last Word

by Art Fag City on May 4, 2009 · 2 comments Blurb


Jerry Saltz's “This is the End; The Rising Tide that Floated All Boats has Gone Out and All Boats are in Danger of Sinking” New York Studio School, April 22, 2009

In related Jerry Saltz-inspired writing, Hrag Vartanian pens a great summary of the critic’s talk last Wednesday on NYFA [currently linked in our sidebar].  A bit of background on one point from the piece– “A veteran New York art observer whose career at the Village Voice from 1998 to 2007 solidified his role as a leading critic,” necessarily omits Saltz’s earlier career, which is no doubt of interest to a few. Blogger Tom Moody described Saltz’s freelance history to me in conversation a while ago, so I asked him to give me the run down:

In the late ’80s and early ’90s, Jerry Saltz wrote for Arts magazine. It was one of the big four (w/ ArtNews, Arforum, and AiA). In its last years, under Barry Schwabsky’s editorship, it was lively and featured a lot of good writing. Saltz had a regular column titled “Notes on a _____” (painting, sculpture, etc) where he highlighted a single work. The artists he wrote about included some hot up-and-comers; according to a Yale grad friend of mine they were informally known among artists as “Jerry’s Kids.” When Arts folded in ’92 Saltz moved around for several years without a regular column (this is my foggy recollection). He wrote for Art in America and Time Out. He was grouchy during this period and would criticize artists above and beyond the call of duty, as anyone who remembers his Time Out reviews of Bradley Rubenstein and Aziz & Cucher will tell you. I mean, sledgehammer time! Eventually he landed at the Village Voice and mellowed somewhat.

As for Saltz’ State of the Art World lecture, covering such topics as fun-sucking curators who no longer appear interested in the plastic arts, please revisit our list of 33 emerging artists.

{ 2 comments }

Allison May 10, 2009 at 11:32 am

…not to mention his past career as a truck driver. Surely that’s worth noting as well.

Allison May 10, 2009 at 6:32 am

…not to mention his past career as a truck driver. Surely that’s worth noting as well.

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