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Art Is Life: Icons and Iconoclasts, Visionaries and Vigilantes, and Flashes of Hope in the Night
From the Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author of How to Be an Artist: a deliciously readable survey of the art world in turbulent times
Jerry Saltz is one of our most-watched writers about art and artists, and a passionate champion of the importance of art in our shared cultural life. Since the 1990s he has been an indispensable cultural voice: witty and provocative, he has attracted contemporary readers to fine art as few critics have. An early champion of forgotten and overlooked women artists, he has also celebrated the pioneering work of African American, LGBTQ+, and other long-marginalized creators. Sotheby’s Institute of Art has called him, simply, “the art critic.”
Now, in Art Is Life, Jerry Saltz draws on two decades of work to offer a real-time survey of contemporary art as a barometer of our times. Chronicling a period punctuated by dramatic turning points—from the cultural reset of 9/11 to the rolling social crises of today—Saltz traces how visionary artists have both documented and challenged the culture. Art Is Life offers Saltz’s eye-opening appraisals of trailblazers like Kara Walker, David Wojnarowicz, Hilma af Klint, and Jasper Johns; provocateurs like Jeff Koons, Richard Prince, and Marina Abramović; and visionaries like Jackson Pollock, Bill Traylor, and Willem de Kooning. Saltz celebrates landmarks like the Obama portraits by Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, writes searchingly about disturbing moments such as the Ankara gallery assassination, and offers surprising takes on figures from Thomas Kinkade to Kim Kardashian. And he shares stories of his own haunted childhood, his time as a “failed artist,” and his epiphanies upon beholding work by Botticelli, Delacroix, and the cave painters of Niaux.
With his signature blend of candor and conviction, Jerry Saltz argues in Art Is Life for the importance of the fearless artist—reminding us that art is a kind of channeled voice of human experience, a necessary window onto our times. The result is an openhearted and irresistibly readable appraisal by one of our most important cultural observers.
Jerry Saltz is one of our most-watched writers about art and artists, and a passionate champion of the importance of art in our shared cultural life. Since the 1990s he has been an indispensable cultural voice: witty and provocative, he has attracted contemporary readers to fine art as few critics have. An early champion of forgotten and overlooked women artists, he has also celebrated the pioneering work of African American, LGBTQ+, and other long-marginalized creators. Sotheby’s Institute of Art has called him, simply, “the art critic.”
Now, in Art Is Life, Jerry Saltz draws on two decades of work to offer a real-time survey of contemporary art as a barometer of our times. Chronicling a period punctuated by dramatic turning points—from the cultural reset of 9/11 to the rolling social crises of today—Saltz traces how visionary artists have both documented and challenged the culture. Art Is Life offers Saltz’s eye-opening appraisals of trailblazers like Kara Walker, David Wojnarowicz, Hilma af Klint, and Jasper Johns; provocateurs like Jeff Koons, Richard Prince, and Marina Abramović; and visionaries like Jackson Pollock, Bill Traylor, and Willem de Kooning. Saltz celebrates landmarks like the Obama portraits by Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, writes searchingly about disturbing moments such as the Ankara gallery assassination, and offers surprising takes on figures from Thomas Kinkade to Kim Kardashian. And he shares stories of his own haunted childhood, his time as a “failed artist,” and his epiphanies upon beholding work by Botticelli, Delacroix, and the cave painters of Niaux.
With his signature blend of candor and conviction, Jerry Saltz argues in Art Is Life for the importance of the fearless artist—reminding us that art is a kind of channeled voice of human experience, a necessary window onto our times. The result is an openhearted and irresistibly readable appraisal by one of our most important cultural observers.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews
March 22, 2025
I expected to like this. The author's Pulitzer Prize credentials are plastered on the front cover, as is the self-aggrandizing title, which might have warned me away.
Here we find a collection of weekly columns from The Village Voice, mostly, written over a twenty-year span. Roughly half are about artists and their work, and the other half about the art world. These latter I could have done without. Saltz proves himself lodged firmly in the "cranky critic" camp, and his worldview doesn't really evolve over twenty years -- too much money is ruining art, and the sorts of people who have the money don't have artistic souls but are just purchasing these things as investments. It's a good point, but I don't need to read the same argument for 170 pages.
His focus was on living artists, and as I'm not au courant on that world, I did learn about several artists I'd not heard of before. I read this with my laptop open next to me, so I could look up the paintings and sculptures he was describing. While I'm grateful for the exposure, by and large his tastes and mine are a mismatch. Alice Neel, Nan Goldin, Carroll Dunham, Robert Gober, Chris Burden and others....I didn't see what Saltz saw. (I acknowledge that many artworks look far better in real life than reproduced on a computer screen.)
On the positive side, Laurel Nakodate, Lisa Yuskavage and Dorothea Tanning's work, while perhaps not something I'd cross the country to go see, was at least interesting. And I deeply appreciate that a column titled "The Most Powerful Artwork I Have Ever Seen" described a visit to a cave in France in which people painted wild animals between 17,000 and 11,000 years ago:
He also introduced me to Kerry James Marshall, who at age 25 created a painting called "A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of his Former Self." This introduction was the shortest essay in the book, a single paragraph. The charitable interpretation is that the artwork speaks for itself and having a gasbag like Jerry Saltz blathering away does not enhance the experience of seeing this painting. Unusually concise, he concludes:
There's a great quote in here from Joan Didion on Thomas Kinkaid, and he also covered the creepy repulsive work of Eric Fischl, which somehow I have long been drawn to. So thanks for that. We also find longer essays about better-known artists, though most of the longer ones are just him railing about the false values of the art world. Of the three longest, one was about Andy Warhol, and I was surprised that I learned almost nothing, given my own disinterest in Warhol; but I'd heard all this before. The other two, opening and closing the book, were devoted to Jerry Saltz.
Here we find a collection of weekly columns from The Village Voice, mostly, written over a twenty-year span. Roughly half are about artists and their work, and the other half about the art world. These latter I could have done without. Saltz proves himself lodged firmly in the "cranky critic" camp, and his worldview doesn't really evolve over twenty years -- too much money is ruining art, and the sorts of people who have the money don't have artistic souls but are just purchasing these things as investments. It's a good point, but I don't need to read the same argument for 170 pages.
His focus was on living artists, and as I'm not au courant on that world, I did learn about several artists I'd not heard of before. I read this with my laptop open next to me, so I could look up the paintings and sculptures he was describing. While I'm grateful for the exposure, by and large his tastes and mine are a mismatch. Alice Neel, Nan Goldin, Carroll Dunham, Robert Gober, Chris Burden and others....I didn't see what Saltz saw. (I acknowledge that many artworks look far better in real life than reproduced on a computer screen.)
On the positive side, Laurel Nakodate, Lisa Yuskavage and Dorothea Tanning's work, while perhaps not something I'd cross the country to go see, was at least interesting. And I deeply appreciate that a column titled "The Most Powerful Artwork I Have Ever Seen" described a visit to a cave in France in which people painted wild animals between 17,000 and 11,000 years ago:
He also introduced me to Kerry James Marshall, who at age 25 created a painting called "A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of his Former Self." This introduction was the shortest essay in the book, a single paragraph. The charitable interpretation is that the artwork speaks for itself and having a gasbag like Jerry Saltz blathering away does not enhance the experience of seeing this painting. Unusually concise, he concludes:
Small, spectral, cartoonish, smoky, frightening, an uncomfortably racial self-caricature, it reverberates with a power reminiscent of Ralph Ellison's horrific line: "I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me."
There's a great quote in here from Joan Didion on Thomas Kinkaid, and he also covered the creepy repulsive work of Eric Fischl, which somehow I have long been drawn to. So thanks for that. We also find longer essays about better-known artists, though most of the longer ones are just him railing about the false values of the art world. Of the three longest, one was about Andy Warhol, and I was surprised that I learned almost nothing, given my own disinterest in Warhol; but I'd heard all this before. The other two, opening and closing the book, were devoted to Jerry Saltz.
February 12, 2023
DNF at 59%. This book isn't a standalone work as much as a collection of essays and articles written over the last few decades by the author, art critic Jerry Saltz, with a fair amount of overlap between various essays that becomes tedious when read in sequence. The biggest flaw of this work, in my opinion, is Saltz' pervasive biases (political, highbrow) that prevents him from objectively viewing and critiquing art. He extols objectively lewd pieces of art as mold-breaking and intelligent while skewering other works simply because the artist doesn't share his political viewpoints (Bush) or panders too much to the masses (Kincaid). Yet it's clear he was deeply hurt by his own artistic career flopping decades ago, which seemed largely his own doing, rather than the result of vitriolic art critics tearing him down like he has been doing to others for deacdes. The further I read, the more I became convinced that Saltz is a deeply angry, unhappy man using his bully pulpit to further his own worldview.
December 31, 2022
Hated it.
Wanted to love it. Could be valuable insight? Eventually? Maybe? If I go to a very pretentious dinner party with a bunch of people I wouldn’t want to talk about art with.
Am I missing something? Am I the problem? Felt pretentious and just ugh yawn.
Wanted to love it. Could be valuable insight? Eventually? Maybe? If I go to a very pretentious dinner party with a bunch of people I wouldn’t want to talk about art with.
Am I missing something? Am I the problem? Felt pretentious and just ugh yawn.
December 31, 2022
An endlessly enjoyable and informative collection. Although I do disagree with some points Saltz makes, I enjoyed every essay.
It also features one of my favorite sentences ever written, “the wildly successful merchant of American sentimentalism, Thomas Kinkade, shared mindspace with the destructive gremlin on the wing of America, George W. Bush, whose deeply squirrelly paintings…were somehow both fascinating and vacant” (13). Amazing.
It also features one of my favorite sentences ever written, “the wildly successful merchant of American sentimentalism, Thomas Kinkade, shared mindspace with the destructive gremlin on the wing of America, George W. Bush, whose deeply squirrelly paintings…were somehow both fascinating and vacant” (13). Amazing.
November 15, 2022
To those in the art world, Jerry Saltz is a household name - his work has won him the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, and as senior art critic for the New York Magazine, Saltz has a voice and opinion which greatly influences both artists and the masses. If we are to truly examine his work, we must forget the television appearances, his three honorary doctorates, and the lifetime he has dedicated to art. However, even if you push these statistics to the back of your mind, the end product is clear; this is the work of an art critic doing what he does best, criticizing art. In addition to breaking down the intricacies of modern art and the artists behind the pieces, he meditates upon the recent history of art, and the direction of its future. The book is multifaceted, and the strongest part of the work is Saltz’s conversational prose. His personal essays, detailing his arduous journey into becoming the eminent critic he is today, are illuminating and told in an honest, open style. Art is Life is one of the most comprehensive books on modern art, leading up to 2021, and detailing the shutdown of galleries during the pandemic. This book is directed at those who have an interest in the art world, but will be equally entertaining and informative for anyone who wants to learn about the madness, genius, and human heart of those who create art.
May 18, 2023
Witty enough but immeasurably more insufferable. DNF
July 26, 2024
Incredible. Funny, honest, educational. Unpretentious and generally accessible, although I’d love to read again (and again?) with more context and knowledge of the artists and movements he speaks about. A love letter to artists, a scathing look at the art world.
“I believe that every artist means everything they’re doing. That no one is making art just to make money or pull the wool over peoples eyes. All artists may want to make money and be loved, but at base they’re still serious about their art. That’s why I hate the cynicism of the art world. All the money and glamour can make it hard to see, and sometimes even harder to believe, that artists mean everything they do as powerfully as anything they’ve ever meant in their entire lives.”
[…]
“Never deny the sources of your pleasure, always honour your eye, follow your taste. Love will find a way.”
[…]
“It’s the same as each generation thinking it has invented sex. Newness is as old as time, the modernists were just a lot cockier about saying so.”
“I believe that every artist means everything they’re doing. That no one is making art just to make money or pull the wool over peoples eyes. All artists may want to make money and be loved, but at base they’re still serious about their art. That’s why I hate the cynicism of the art world. All the money and glamour can make it hard to see, and sometimes even harder to believe, that artists mean everything they do as powerfully as anything they’ve ever meant in their entire lives.”
[…]
“Never deny the sources of your pleasure, always honour your eye, follow your taste. Love will find a way.”
[…]
“It’s the same as each generation thinking it has invented sex. Newness is as old as time, the modernists were just a lot cockier about saying so.”
April 9, 2023
A collection of essays from Saltz’s career as an art critic. Some of the pieces were quite short, and I quickly realized that the ones about the business of the art world did not interest me at all. There were a few longer pieces that were especially interesting. I liked reading this on an iPad because I could easily look up the art for a visual reference 😎
December 7, 2022
It is always such a delight to spend time with Jerry Saltz’s writing.
Saltz does such a wonderful job of making art criticism accessible without dumbing it down intellectually, and I love that he has never deviated from this approach.
If you’re a long time Vulture reader you’ll likely recognize some of the material included, though I found I didn’t mind this at all. Saltz appears to have reworked some of it to make it flow as a cohesive book, and it truly does read like a continuous narrative rather than a collection of old columns.
If you have some background in art I don’t know that you’ll truly learn anything from this in terms of truly new information, but Saltz’s musings and perspective make even revisits to the work of popular Old Masters feel fresh again.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
Saltz does such a wonderful job of making art criticism accessible without dumbing it down intellectually, and I love that he has never deviated from this approach.
If you’re a long time Vulture reader you’ll likely recognize some of the material included, though I found I didn’t mind this at all. Saltz appears to have reworked some of it to make it flow as a cohesive book, and it truly does read like a continuous narrative rather than a collection of old columns.
If you have some background in art I don’t know that you’ll truly learn anything from this in terms of truly new information, but Saltz’s musings and perspective make even revisits to the work of popular Old Masters feel fresh again.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
January 10, 2023
Enjoyable writing full of pizzaz. Good to keep Google handy to check on some of the artists he writes about. The short dated entries, originally published in New York Magazine, make it great for just picking up whenever, though they are sometimes repetitive. I liked reading about his impressions and personal experiences regarding what was happening beyond the galleries and museums, like the AIDS epidemic, 9/11, or COVID. Best for me are the entries that are personal; giving us what is a highly unusual back story for an art writer or critic and the story of his relationship with his wife Roberta Smith and her struggle with cancer. While I don't always agree with his opinions regarding certain artists, I am convinced that he truly loves and appreciates art, and understands something of why artists do what they do.
June 15, 2023
"The artist is a sort of Dr. Frankenstein, transmuting the rules of nature and the material world, memory, influence, culture, and tradition, trying to bring something new and unknown to life...The artist loves going down rabbit holes, working toward and against something at the same time, translating sensory and extrasensory impressions that all have their own sovereignty or joy, each of them on a journey to bring something back from a personal underworld, to build a new body out of disparate parts and materials. In this way, art is something like an undoing of death."
4.5 stars. Jerry is great, as usual. Accessible but still historically engaged and critical. A few essays I won't return to - more that I will.
4.5 stars. Jerry is great, as usual. Accessible but still historically engaged and critical. A few essays I won't return to - more that I will.
December 22, 2022
(me, to me: "don't compare it to the other book")
**deep breath**
Ok. I love love love Jerry Salz, I am a HUGE Jerry fan, bla bla bla, and I ADORED How to be an Artist.
Having said that, it pains me to say that, while I'm definitely enjoying this book, I am not as jazzed about it as the last one ("what did we JUST say??").
I think part of it is the format: this book is much more of an anthology of Jerry's writings, as opposed to the last book, which was more thematically unified. That one was the Sgt. Pepper, this one is more like the Red album and Blue albums combined (apologies if you're not a Beatles fan and don't get that analogy, but also, too bad). By no means do I mean to imply that this collection of writings isn't fascinating, eye-opening, funny, and enriching (it is); it's just a LOT.
Fortunately, the plus side of its structure is such that one doesn't need to read it in one sitting, or even in chronological order, for that matter.
There's still so much we can learn from Jerry, even if you don't agree with his very strong opinions. At least he upholds the legacy of the critic actually doing just that: critiquing.
Side note: Jerry narrates part of the audiobook, and another narrator handles much of the rest; while Jerry has made references to his slow, midwestern drawl as hard to listen to, I disagree. I wish he had narrated the whole thing, but even he might agree it's too much for one person (the audiobook is over 14 hours).
**deep breath**
Ok. I love love love Jerry Salz, I am a HUGE Jerry fan, bla bla bla, and I ADORED How to be an Artist.
Having said that, it pains me to say that, while I'm definitely enjoying this book, I am not as jazzed about it as the last one ("what did we JUST say??").
I think part of it is the format: this book is much more of an anthology of Jerry's writings, as opposed to the last book, which was more thematically unified. That one was the Sgt. Pepper, this one is more like the Red album and Blue albums combined (apologies if you're not a Beatles fan and don't get that analogy, but also, too bad). By no means do I mean to imply that this collection of writings isn't fascinating, eye-opening, funny, and enriching (it is); it's just a LOT.
Fortunately, the plus side of its structure is such that one doesn't need to read it in one sitting, or even in chronological order, for that matter.
There's still so much we can learn from Jerry, even if you don't agree with his very strong opinions. At least he upholds the legacy of the critic actually doing just that: critiquing.
Side note: Jerry narrates part of the audiobook, and another narrator handles much of the rest; while Jerry has made references to his slow, midwestern drawl as hard to listen to, I disagree. I wish he had narrated the whole thing, but even he might agree it's too much for one person (the audiobook is over 14 hours).
April 13, 2024
Did not finish it. The introductory chapter was captivating, but his reviews on art and artists were dry and unconvincing. Also, essays on the “art world” and the American art market (which quite frankly I couldn’t care less about) were so incredibly boring and superficial. His commentary on the current state of art in the world lacked insight- political, geographical, social- and came across as performative and gimmicky. What I do appreciate is that the language he uses is accessible, I can see why he’s so popular. I also admired his honesty when he spoke about his own failure and flirtations with being an artist, but at the same time it seemed to me, as I moved through the book, that his young, insecure and star-struck self never really left. I’m glad I didn’t purchase this book and borrowed it instead. It’ll be my quickest return thus far.
December 11, 2023
This was excellent. This is the kind of book I wish I had purchased instead of getting it from the library. There is so much thought provoking and insightful writing packed into this book. It was a bit like drinking from a hose, I might forget a few points and many of the names mentioned, but what I absorbed was revitalizing and delicious.
May 27, 2024
Art Is Life: Icons and Iconoclasts, Visionaries and Vigilantes, and Flashes of Hope in the Night is a compilation of Saltz’s wonderful writings over several decades. Although they are not expressly political, he they are organized around the political turning points in the US, beginning with the end of the Clinton years and ending with the “The Long American Night” between 2016 and 2021.
There is much to read here ― art criticism, analysis, artist profiles, and confessional ― and every essay is a gem.
There is much to read here ― art criticism, analysis, artist profiles, and confessional ― and every essay is a gem.
November 26, 2022
I was knee deep in a toilet cleaning, when this audiobook came to a halt, and I thought 'oh, is that it?'
My life must have completely vortexed in and out between periods of listening...I'm unsure if there was even a periodic structure to the content?
Definitely intresting
Insightful for sure
My life must have completely vortexed in and out between periods of listening...I'm unsure if there was even a periodic structure to the content?
Definitely intresting
Insightful for sure
June 8, 2023
Fabulous book. Introduced me to so many artists and artworks. Essential to have an electronic device with you when reading so that you can see the artworks and learn form his prose. To top it off the chapter on his background is truly inspirational.
February 27, 2024
All of the essays all at once were tedious to read but I still really enjoyed this book. It felt accessible and not pretentious at all. Although I will say you will have a better time if you’re familiar with at least some of these artists and their work. This is really just a huge compilation of Jerry’s work as an art critic. So. Some previous knowledge is helpful.
June 24, 2025
a drag brunch in times new roman -- overseen by a narrator-waitress, who under the alternative universe conditions of being so impossibly charitable to spare a moment from his gallery gallivanting to sear his eyes across this charcoal grill i occasionally light, would not be so altered by his cosmic commute to overlook that i probably just misidentified the helvetica text he so painstakingly selected for this survey course of a life lived by looking. from ruthless campaigns against commas disgracefully omitted by the ranks of georgia o'keeffe to leaving not a single tastebud of his unused in every unapologetic dissertation on the formal shortcomings of daniel libeskind's blueprints for the 9/11 memorial, saltz is an unequivocal diva. one part elementary art history education and seventeen thousand parts semi-conscious autobiography, saltz' life resists theses. though not quite the verbal equivalent of picasso's self-portraiture, undulations in saltz' writing cannot help but be noticed. art and money are always sleeping together, and yet the locus of his essays migrates back up the pen, his most recent works divulging of himself what once crowded cryptically into fragments in passing, seemingly only incidental details whose elaboration was not so much the lens but a special effect. and as with any respectable piece of literature, my assumptions were trounced -- and not all at once but through multiple, self-referential courses of disproof cuisine. for as amused as i am at every rendering of every artist so jauntily and vividly inked in saltz' impressions of the previous two decades, up-and-coming and came-and-gone both, i’m assured the persistence of his incertitude at the direction of art movements forthcoming and even so much as his own abilities to produce and evaluate the opera whose centrality to the text may be undeservingly inflated by the still unquestionably to-the-point titles of his past two decades' of service to smocked basketcases everywhere. who begins a fly on the wall begins to envision himself, too, in the room. suspecting my "new york times" offer letter had just inadvertently been stuck to someone's saliva-saturated light bill in the mail truck, i do have some notes less favorable on their face to submit before (hopefully) officially receiving the password to the café bathroom. whereas saltz demonstrates clearly and consistently that his writing is just as piquant as his name suggests and however enviable and heartfelt his bromance with jasper johns may appear in writing, i'm alarmed immediately at their consensus on the inevitability of art, the way in which a higher calling is not so much requited dutifully as followed choicelessly. not all muses are cupid, though, and it's not just writer's block which replies in the negative. the rate of mid-paragraph epiphanies aside, instincts are shapeable, admitting (or i at least comfort myself by saying) to revision more than this unavoidability schematic preaches. and then there is equally likely the possibilities that i've not yet booked my keyboard's exorcism or that i refuse to attend fully the séances which are these creative outpourings. though, i will concede, his theory of art as a transcript of the immutable divine holds up against his susceptibility to leaving the issue of the marginalized cloaked in inventively situated buzzwords and a postured if automatic deference to melanin. one especially pronounced symptom of this inattentiveness can be found in the essay entitled "beauford delaney, black and gay, very nearly disappeared from art history". whereas saltz makes laudable efforts to crumple the margins of the art world into the centerfold, he cites sexual and racial biases as though they explained themselves, marshaling minimal effort to answer the inescapable questions steaming off the page; "because racism" stops short of addressing, for instance, whether all art produced by Black people is Black art, or if instead the distinction is awarded on the grounds of subject matter or style or the shading-in of any number of different rubrics. he mentions that artistic privilege was extended first to gay white men and only subsequently to straight white women -- how could you not scramble immediately at the suggestion that the lines in the hierarchy of the sexes are even bolder than those dividing sexualities? perhaps i'm demanding unjustifiably of a mere mortal something miles outside his skillset and stratospheres above his pay grade, but saltz' most incisive commentary comes from within the frame. for someone who is probably capable of reciting all the first names attached to the ones after which any gallery ever is named, saltz is remarkably unpretentious. he, too, proclaims himself a "hunter-gatherer-microwaver" who has known the perils of navel gazing and cross-country trucking and sibling rivalries so fraught as not to elude mention a breath away from an unpacking of abstract expressionism. any book with so much alliteration on the cover is bound to be a little underwhelming, but i am equipped if nothing else with a sense of the vast overestimation of the immediacy of the apocalypse teeming throughout. strokes of the brush and hemorrhage kind both are charged with an identical importance through every movement, the public gaze slipping from one corner to the next, a novelty so enormous onlookers in hordes can't imagine the resurrection of the craft until perishing years later beside the warhol diptych of marilyn monroe whose fluctuating price has possessed an almost magnetic effect on your comfortability with its insertion in the disjointed narrative into which saltz has so deservedly imprinted himself. almost as prejudice-overturning as it is name-dropping, a book whose contents I cannot wait to disgorge uncontrollably at whichever barnes bacchanal i next pester.
February 1, 2024
I was unaware of JERRY SALTZ until I saw many of my artists friends were looking at his Facebook posts. I joined the group and began delving into Jerry’s posts about the art scene.
We learned about Prologue Bookstore when the owner made a presentation at an Aldus Society meeting one evening. Information about this book collectors’ group can be found at their website https://aldussociety.com/about-the-al... When we visited the store to check it out, I bought ART IS LIFE partly to show support for the bookstore, but also out of curiosity. I’m glad I did, because it is very informative, not academic at all, and surprisingly different from the obtuse art critic articles I used to read in art magazines back before the internet. I rate this book for Goodreads as 4 stars instead of 5 stars because there are no photos of any of the artworks or artists of which he writes about.
Jerry Saltz has been a columnist for NEW YORK magazine since 2007 and was formerly senior art critic for The Village Voice for almost 10 years. He is known as a “critic of the people” per Architectural Digest. Quoted from this book: “He democratizes art for a broad audience through his irreverent column and his social media channels, where he has nearly one million followers.”
In 2018, he won the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism for “My Life as a Failed Artist,” an essay about how his disappointing career as an artist is responsible for his success as a critic. The essay in New York magazine helped sell nearly 400,000 print editions of the magazine and gained over 250,000 readers online, plus helped earn a National Magazine Award for New York magazine. No wonder that the editor of Riverhead Books reached out to him for a book that would expand on that article. I haven’t read that first book, HOW TO BE AN ARTIST, but the first chapter in ART IS LIFE is titled, “My Life as a Failed Artist”, so I assume many of the points from that first book are summarized in this book’s first chapter.
ART IS LIFE has a long subtitle: Icons and Iconoclasts, Visionaries and Vigilantes, and Flashes of Hope in the Night. It’s introduced as a “survey of the art world in turbulent times”, or “in an era of radical change”. To me, this book initially seemed to be a matter of gathering essays he wrote between 2017 and 2022 with editing help from Riverhead Books editor, Calvert Morgan. But the introduction and specially written chapter about his personal life with his wife, Roberta Smith, who was trying to beat uterine cancer during the Covid pandemic (which affectively shut down the art galleries), is very moving, as well as Jerry’s stories about personal exchanges with Jasper Johns and other artists. There is a chapter about his early life growing up in Chicago which sounds like bad news, starting with the suicide of his mother when he was only eight, and continuing with the harrowing adventures of melding with a new step-family when his father remarried.
Jerry is a great writer about life, not just about art. But as the book title says, “ART IS LIFE”.
We learned about Prologue Bookstore when the owner made a presentation at an Aldus Society meeting one evening. Information about this book collectors’ group can be found at their website https://aldussociety.com/about-the-al... When we visited the store to check it out, I bought ART IS LIFE partly to show support for the bookstore, but also out of curiosity. I’m glad I did, because it is very informative, not academic at all, and surprisingly different from the obtuse art critic articles I used to read in art magazines back before the internet. I rate this book for Goodreads as 4 stars instead of 5 stars because there are no photos of any of the artworks or artists of which he writes about.
Jerry Saltz has been a columnist for NEW YORK magazine since 2007 and was formerly senior art critic for The Village Voice for almost 10 years. He is known as a “critic of the people” per Architectural Digest. Quoted from this book: “He democratizes art for a broad audience through his irreverent column and his social media channels, where he has nearly one million followers.”
In 2018, he won the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism for “My Life as a Failed Artist,” an essay about how his disappointing career as an artist is responsible for his success as a critic. The essay in New York magazine helped sell nearly 400,000 print editions of the magazine and gained over 250,000 readers online, plus helped earn a National Magazine Award for New York magazine. No wonder that the editor of Riverhead Books reached out to him for a book that would expand on that article. I haven’t read that first book, HOW TO BE AN ARTIST, but the first chapter in ART IS LIFE is titled, “My Life as a Failed Artist”, so I assume many of the points from that first book are summarized in this book’s first chapter.
ART IS LIFE has a long subtitle: Icons and Iconoclasts, Visionaries and Vigilantes, and Flashes of Hope in the Night. It’s introduced as a “survey of the art world in turbulent times”, or “in an era of radical change”. To me, this book initially seemed to be a matter of gathering essays he wrote between 2017 and 2022 with editing help from Riverhead Books editor, Calvert Morgan. But the introduction and specially written chapter about his personal life with his wife, Roberta Smith, who was trying to beat uterine cancer during the Covid pandemic (which affectively shut down the art galleries), is very moving, as well as Jerry’s stories about personal exchanges with Jasper Johns and other artists. There is a chapter about his early life growing up in Chicago which sounds like bad news, starting with the suicide of his mother when he was only eight, and continuing with the harrowing adventures of melding with a new step-family when his father remarried.
Jerry is a great writer about life, not just about art. But as the book title says, “ART IS LIFE”.
December 29, 2022
This new book by Pulitzer Prize winning art critic Jerry Saltz, Art is Life, is a delight and a must read for anyone interested in contemporary art. Saltz’s writing is engaging, self-deprecating, funny, sometimes provocative, often intimate, always deeply human. He’s a charming guide to art in the 21st century.
I love art museums, but I’ll admit that I wasn’t familiar with many new artists or trends in the art world. That didn’t matter one bit, because Jerry Saltz took me on a journey through the last two decades of art and beyond. He argues that the art scene has been being completely rewritten since 2001 and his book include accounts of the abrupt paradigm shift after 9/11, the inclusion of a new generation of gay and female artists and artists of color in major exhibits, the rampant commercialization and art speculation before the 2008 recession, Charlie Hebdo, the Obama portraits, Instagram artists and art in response to Trumpism and permacrisis.
Saltz’s enthusiasm for artists he admires is palpable. I loved his essays on Kara Walker (“the best art made about America in this century”), Cindy Sherman, Steve McQueen, Nan Goldin, Louise Bourgeois, and Jasper Johns. I also discovered many new-to-me artists and their works: Andreas Gursky’s giant image of an Amazon warehouse, the provocative “Huck and Jim” sculpture by Charles Ray, the iridescent canvases of neglected Swedish painter Hilma af Klint.
Not all essays are about specific artists or trends. Saltz also writes about gallery visitors, museum spaces, art dealers becoming richer and artists in poverty. He shares stories about his difficult childhood, his failed turn as an artist, becoming a writer at age 39, as well as memorable encounters with arms-dealing art collectors and ancient cave paintings so powerful they almost made him black out. Saltz describes what he sees and feels so vividly we can’t help seeing it too.
If you want to immerse yourself in exciting new (and old) art and outstanding writing, this is a wonderful choice.
Thank you @riverheadbooks for this early copy.
I love art museums, but I’ll admit that I wasn’t familiar with many new artists or trends in the art world. That didn’t matter one bit, because Jerry Saltz took me on a journey through the last two decades of art and beyond. He argues that the art scene has been being completely rewritten since 2001 and his book include accounts of the abrupt paradigm shift after 9/11, the inclusion of a new generation of gay and female artists and artists of color in major exhibits, the rampant commercialization and art speculation before the 2008 recession, Charlie Hebdo, the Obama portraits, Instagram artists and art in response to Trumpism and permacrisis.
Saltz’s enthusiasm for artists he admires is palpable. I loved his essays on Kara Walker (“the best art made about America in this century”), Cindy Sherman, Steve McQueen, Nan Goldin, Louise Bourgeois, and Jasper Johns. I also discovered many new-to-me artists and their works: Andreas Gursky’s giant image of an Amazon warehouse, the provocative “Huck and Jim” sculpture by Charles Ray, the iridescent canvases of neglected Swedish painter Hilma af Klint.
Not all essays are about specific artists or trends. Saltz also writes about gallery visitors, museum spaces, art dealers becoming richer and artists in poverty. He shares stories about his difficult childhood, his failed turn as an artist, becoming a writer at age 39, as well as memorable encounters with arms-dealing art collectors and ancient cave paintings so powerful they almost made him black out. Saltz describes what he sees and feels so vividly we can’t help seeing it too.
If you want to immerse yourself in exciting new (and old) art and outstanding writing, this is a wonderful choice.
Thank you @riverheadbooks for this early copy.
September 19, 2024
Art is Life is a collection of mini-essays (generally about 2 pages) art critic Jerry Saltz wrote during the years 1999 - 2021. I was inclined to rate this 4 stars, but a couple of longer essays late in the book won me over. These are some of my thoughts on this book:
* Saltz is prone to hyperbole - every artist or work of art he admires is the best of the best and transformed the world. This can get a little tedious at times, but over the course of the book, I came to appreciate Saltz' enthusiasm. Shouldn't someone who writes about art love what he does?
* My one big disagreement with Saltz is that he repeatedly praises work of a sexually graphic nature. This is one time I'm grateful for a book with no illustrations. I understand artists sometimes use provocative work to explore gender issues or other themes, it's just not for me.
* Art novices like me will need to do some work to get the full benefit of Art is Life. I repeatedly found myself looking up the works of the artists Saltz writes about. This gave me the freedom to study each artist and their work as little or as much as I wanted. Similarly, Art is Life begins to give historic context to Abstract Expressionism, Modernism, etc. The reader is then free to research individual topics at their own leisure.
* Fundamentalist wingnuts hate this book. That's worth at least one extra star.
* "My Appetites," appearing near the end of the book and written early in the Covid-19 pandemic, is a moving exploration of Saltz' journey to becoming an art critic and his marriage to art critic Roberta Smith. This essay alone is worth the price of the book.
So even though I cringed at a paragraph here or there, Art is Life has given me a lot more to think about than most books, and that is exactly why I read in the first place.
* Saltz is prone to hyperbole - every artist or work of art he admires is the best of the best and transformed the world. This can get a little tedious at times, but over the course of the book, I came to appreciate Saltz' enthusiasm. Shouldn't someone who writes about art love what he does?
* My one big disagreement with Saltz is that he repeatedly praises work of a sexually graphic nature. This is one time I'm grateful for a book with no illustrations. I understand artists sometimes use provocative work to explore gender issues or other themes, it's just not for me.
* Art novices like me will need to do some work to get the full benefit of Art is Life. I repeatedly found myself looking up the works of the artists Saltz writes about. This gave me the freedom to study each artist and their work as little or as much as I wanted. Similarly, Art is Life begins to give historic context to Abstract Expressionism, Modernism, etc. The reader is then free to research individual topics at their own leisure.
* Fundamentalist wingnuts hate this book. That's worth at least one extra star.
* "My Appetites," appearing near the end of the book and written early in the Covid-19 pandemic, is a moving exploration of Saltz' journey to becoming an art critic and his marriage to art critic Roberta Smith. This essay alone is worth the price of the book.
So even though I cringed at a paragraph here or there, Art is Life has given me a lot more to think about than most books, and that is exactly why I read in the first place.
April 17, 2023
It's alright.
Art Is Life is a collection of Jerry Saltz's writing over the past 10 or so years. It ranges from exhibition reviews to takes on the contemporary art world. Its high points are high and its low points are...very average.
Saltz isn't like most critics. The theoretical background so prominent in projects like Artforum and October is completely missing from his work. The upside is that it's democratic, easily and widely read. The downside is...well, all of his pieces kinda feel the same. He's a critic who deals only in adjectives. They can only go so far. His complete refusal to at least occasionally work within a theoretical reference frame makes some of his work pretty dead.
On the other hand, he's so good at writing about himself! So good! The fourth-to-last(?) piece in this book is about him and his wife (fellow critic Roberta Smith) and their experiences with the pandemic. It's told lovingly, frantically, with a self-awareness that doesn't aggrandize. "We got these lives and learned to make them talk," he says. What a beautiful, practical thing.
The result is some hits and some misses. It's okay that Jerry will never be like Peter Schjeldahl. Can't expect *everyone* to be perfect.
Art Is Life is a collection of Jerry Saltz's writing over the past 10 or so years. It ranges from exhibition reviews to takes on the contemporary art world. Its high points are high and its low points are...very average.
Saltz isn't like most critics. The theoretical background so prominent in projects like Artforum and October is completely missing from his work. The upside is that it's democratic, easily and widely read. The downside is...well, all of his pieces kinda feel the same. He's a critic who deals only in adjectives. They can only go so far. His complete refusal to at least occasionally work within a theoretical reference frame makes some of his work pretty dead.
On the other hand, he's so good at writing about himself! So good! The fourth-to-last(?) piece in this book is about him and his wife (fellow critic Roberta Smith) and their experiences with the pandemic. It's told lovingly, frantically, with a self-awareness that doesn't aggrandize. "We got these lives and learned to make them talk," he says. What a beautiful, practical thing.
The result is some hits and some misses. It's okay that Jerry will never be like Peter Schjeldahl. Can't expect *everyone* to be perfect.
March 27, 2024
Sometimes it’s hard to read about art and not feel dumb, but Jerry invites you into this whole world not with absurd descriptions trying to capture the importance of a piece but with stories and feelings that feel accessible to anyone. I am trying to figure out what art means for a society and myself and why I should care about any of it, and I’ve appreciated Jerry’s insights. Thanks, Jerry.
This book is a collection of Jerry’s articles from the past few decades as he does his art critic thing and writes about art in its moment. It spans 1999 to basically today, which is basically as long as I have lived also. It’s fascinating to read how artists and the art world responded to cataclysmic current events and how these shaped art as I know it today. Jerry is a classic (though self aware) liberal and loves talking about Evil Trump and also loves America, which is the only negative thing I have to say about Jerry.
My favorite of his articles were his short biographies of different artists (usually obituaries but somehow still so fun!), and the more autobiographical pieces. He’s got a very interesting life and I love reading about people who find their passions so late in life.
Jerry. This guy.
This book is a collection of Jerry’s articles from the past few decades as he does his art critic thing and writes about art in its moment. It spans 1999 to basically today, which is basically as long as I have lived also. It’s fascinating to read how artists and the art world responded to cataclysmic current events and how these shaped art as I know it today. Jerry is a classic (though self aware) liberal and loves talking about Evil Trump and also loves America, which is the only negative thing I have to say about Jerry.
My favorite of his articles were his short biographies of different artists (usually obituaries but somehow still so fun!), and the more autobiographical pieces. He’s got a very interesting life and I love reading about people who find their passions so late in life.
Jerry. This guy.
January 19, 2023
Oh how I enjoyed this warts-and-all dive into Jerry Saltz’s gnarly views on art! Unfussy yet unbridled, subjective yet open-minded, opinionated yet changeable - what a complex of contrasts, and yet, his is such an inviting way in to the act of seeing art as a mere mortal. Jerry blithely skips through what has proven to be a minefield for other art critics, and why not? He clearly loves looking at art and talking to artists, and relishes being part of the art world.
Like a doting mother he scolds, cajoles, kvells, bewails and practically shrieks his feelings, insights, and revelations. Nor does he hide from his own insatiable eye, subjecting his own past to a most unsentimental scouring. And yet, for all his catastrophizing and finger wagging, this modern day Cassandra may be onto something. Perhaps it’s nothing more than the needfulness that overwhelms some of us when we are in the presence of something that is manifestly more than the sum of its parts. Jerry is just a bit more honest and unfiltered than the rest of us. He’s the art critic we didn’t know we needed, Art’s biggest fan and it’s mouthy pain-in-the-ass. In his own words, “Get back to work, you big babies!”
Like a doting mother he scolds, cajoles, kvells, bewails and practically shrieks his feelings, insights, and revelations. Nor does he hide from his own insatiable eye, subjecting his own past to a most unsentimental scouring. And yet, for all his catastrophizing and finger wagging, this modern day Cassandra may be onto something. Perhaps it’s nothing more than the needfulness that overwhelms some of us when we are in the presence of something that is manifestly more than the sum of its parts. Jerry is just a bit more honest and unfiltered than the rest of us. He’s the art critic we didn’t know we needed, Art’s biggest fan and it’s mouthy pain-in-the-ass. In his own words, “Get back to work, you big babies!”
March 6, 2023
Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning Jerry Saltz is a prominent art critic, who writes of trends, individual artists, exhibitions, and the importance of art in our cultural life. His writing is always witty, bold, even provocative. This book is a collection of Saltz’s essays, written over two decades and published in The Village Voice, New York Magazine, and elsewhere.
I loved Saltz’s previous book, How to Be an Artist. I liked this one — but my interest varied with topics. I most enjoyed those centering on artists with whose work I’m familiar. I’m not really knowledgeable about, or much interested in, the New York art scene, the big museums, the famous exhibitions, high-price art auctions, and the like. But I always appreciate Saltz’s writing style, his causes, the art he loves and why it moves him, his championing of gender and racial diversity and otherwise marginalized artists. Also, I listened to the audiobook and Saltz narrates it. Hearing writers narrate their own books is always a plus for me, and Saltz is good!
I loved Saltz’s previous book, How to Be an Artist. I liked this one — but my interest varied with topics. I most enjoyed those centering on artists with whose work I’m familiar. I’m not really knowledgeable about, or much interested in, the New York art scene, the big museums, the famous exhibitions, high-price art auctions, and the like. But I always appreciate Saltz’s writing style, his causes, the art he loves and why it moves him, his championing of gender and racial diversity and otherwise marginalized artists. Also, I listened to the audiobook and Saltz narrates it. Hearing writers narrate their own books is always a plus for me, and Saltz is good!
January 24, 2023
Ok so I have worked in an art museum for almost 14 years now in security. I have to admit I only read this book because Jerry Saltz was nice to me in a gallery I was working once. Someone had to point out who he was. He greeted me and asked how I was and what my opinion of the show was and listened graciously to my stumbling answer. And that...just did not happen very often to me in a uniform. In the few moments I spent in his presence, he showed the same kindness, curiosity, wonder and grace that he demonstrates so eloquently here in this book. The thing is, even though I work in a world famous art museum I did not know a lot of the artists or the art he was talking about. Lots of googling was to be done, lots of things to explore. And that is what a great book will do...push you to gain even more knowledge, to continue to really look around you and understand the world you are living in. Also inspires me to find a way out and a purpose in life even though I am almost 40.
June 18, 2023
Jerry Saltz is a critic of both excellence and comfort. Though reaching far and wide across the movements of art he covered throughout his career, what remains bold and consistent is his unwavering dedication to commanding us to see the immense sanctuary of art. This collection is a beautiful follow to his first book, “How to be an Artist.” It’s a poignant timeline and evolution of his word, art history, personal antidotes and an ever present notion of feeling. He is both vulnerable, direct and relatable in his tone, as if we are somehow riding his coattails peering into exhibition openings, studio visits and late night writing sessions…in a way that makes the art world more comprehensible, real and alive. He does not stray from the unglamorous or the unsaid, he charters to ever detail, break and question whether in the artwork, the artist, the audience or himself. I’m continually inspired and brought back to life by the simple dexterity of his writings on art.
July 26, 2024
Take me back to school, jerry!
“Can art on its own change global warming, stop iran’s president from denying the holocaust, or half the spread of aids, the answer, im afraid, is no. In concert with other things, however, art CAN change the world-incrementally and by osmosis. This is because art is part of a universal force. It has no less purpose or meaning than science, religion, philosophy, politics, or any other discipline, and is as much a form of intelligence or knowing as a first kiss, a last goodbye, or an algebraic equation. Art is an energy source that helps make change possible; it sees things in clusters and constellations rather than rigid systems. It is both a bridge to a new vision and the vision itself, a medium or matrix through which one sees the world. It grants that pleasure is an important form of knowledge. Art is not optional; it is necessary. It is part of the whole ball of wax.”
“Can art on its own change global warming, stop iran’s president from denying the holocaust, or half the spread of aids, the answer, im afraid, is no. In concert with other things, however, art CAN change the world-incrementally and by osmosis. This is because art is part of a universal force. It has no less purpose or meaning than science, religion, philosophy, politics, or any other discipline, and is as much a form of intelligence or knowing as a first kiss, a last goodbye, or an algebraic equation. Art is an energy source that helps make change possible; it sees things in clusters and constellations rather than rigid systems. It is both a bridge to a new vision and the vision itself, a medium or matrix through which one sees the world. It grants that pleasure is an important form of knowledge. Art is not optional; it is necessary. It is part of the whole ball of wax.”
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