Good Life Project - Jerry Saltz | How Art Changes Us (and is being changed by us)

Episode Date: October 24, 2022

Imagine working as an artist for a decade only to burn out, melt down, and vanish from that world to spend 10 years driving a truck. Then, having never written before the age of 40, returning to that same world, but this time as an art critic for some of the biggest magazines and arbiters of taste in that domain. Having never been formally trained or degreed or even studied art in a formal way. How is that even possible? That is the story of today’s guest, Jerry Saltz, the senior art critic at New York magazine and Vulture, and the author of the New York Times bestseller How to Be an Artist. In his most recent book Art Is Life, Jerry draws on two decades of work to offer a real-time survey of contemporary art as a barometer of our times, arguing 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.You can find Jerry at: New York Magazine | InstagramIf you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Maria Garcia about the art of performance and how it can change millions of lives.Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKEDVisit Our Sponsor Page For a Complete List of Vanity URLs & Discount Codes.Cabinets To Go: Whether you’re looking to simply replace a few cabinets or for a fully customized remodel, Cabinets To Go is your one-stop renovation destination. Right now, get a full custom 3D design of your new kitchen at CabinetsToGo.com/GOODLIFE. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Art echoes out into every other thing. In many ways, art was here before we were. Art is a creative force that's using all of us to reproduce itself. And as it reproduces itself, it changes us. So I guess I should end this podcast right now to say, it's all so good. Just get to work, you big babies. So imagine working as an artist for over a decade or so, only to burn out, melt down, and largely vanish from that world. To spend 10 years driving a truck, and then having never written before the age of 40, somehow being inspired to return to that very same world, but this time, not as a working artist, but as an art critic for some of the biggest magazines and arbiters of taste in that world, having never been formally trained or degreed or even studied art in a formal way. How is this even possible?

Well, that is the story of my guest today, Jerry Salls, the senior art critic at New York Magazine and Vulture and the author of New York Times bestseller, How to Be an Artist, and his most recent book, Art is Life. In 2018, Jerry was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. He's a frequent guest lecturer at major universities and museums. He's spoken everywhere from Harvard, MoMA, Guggenheim to Columbia University, Yale, RISD, so many different places. Jerry is one of our most watched writers about art and artists. He is a passionate champion for the importance of art in our shared culture. Since the 90s, he's been an indispensable cultural voice and also an early champion of many forgotten and overlooked artists from women to African American, LGBTQ plus communities, and other long marginalized

creators. In Art is Life, Jerry, he draws on two decades of work to offer this real-time survey of the world of art around us right now as a barometer of our times, arguing for the importance of the fearless artist, reminding us that art is a kind of channeled voice of human experience, a necessary window into our times. And the result is this open-hearted and kind of irresistibly readable appraisal by one of our most important cultural observers. And we also dive deep into Jerry's personal journey, the moments along the way that brought him to art, what art did to and for him, sometimes in the best of ways and sometimes in

ways that sent him into very dark places, why he made these seeming abrupt changes and how in the best of ways and sometimes in ways that send him into very dark places. Why he made these seeming abrupt changes and how in the world he was able to pull them off. And then more broadly, what is art? Who gets to decide? Who gets to criticize? Who gets to pass judgment? And what's happening in the art scene now? Everything from mega galleries and collectors to the online world and how that is profoundly changing things. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is?

You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. We always ask just before for like a little bit, like what's on your mind, what's your current passion. And one of the things that you shared that took me by surprise,

although it shouldn't have given your Instagram account is passion for Formula One racing. I love Formula One racing. That's for me about the best thing that came out of, uh, you know, the horridness of COVID that, uh, we got something called Netflix as old people and I turned it on and, and there it was. And as an American who grew up watching only baseball and the NFL, I went nuts about this. And now I have podcasts I follow, you know, Formula One fans. All I can say to people is these guys are about as big as jockeys. Every single one of them is so gorgeous that it's a little scary. They're Europeans. It's like soccer.

Americans don't know how to do this yet. But we bought the fucking sport. So now they're largely broke the band in a good way. But Formula One is interesting. So let me ask you a question. Do you draw any parallels to what draws you to Formula One and to the bigger world that you live in? Absolutely. I see people working alone and together, willing to fail flamboyantly in public. They put their actual lives on the line, the drivers specifically. but metaphorically, that connects to me very much, as well as the obsession with how something is made, what it looks like, form, the every aspect of it has echoes in, of course, art. But then art echoes out into every other thing. In many ways, art was here before we were, that we have never been without

it. A species that lived before us, Neanderthal, made hand stone axes that they shared in their material culture by passing on trade routes different materials to make these hand stone axes. And now we know they were painted and had incredible designs on them. So once art comes, it never leaves. I believe that every person listening to this, that every cell in your body has creativity in it, flexibility, adaptability, the ability to learn something new every day. It's a bit like waking up in the morning, doom scrolling Instagram, and within 22 minutes, you will feel astonished at stuff you never thought of, horrified that other people are not as good as you are, and even worse about how much worse you are than they are. And I'm not talking about envy.

I'm talking about fundamental positions in life that actually change not only daily, but in real time you can track them, as when we all make things, and to get back to F1, as we aficionados like to call it, you see those decisions made in real time. And I'm really interested in that. I've always watched sports for that. So the cooks have it. Chefs talk about this constantly. I see like a sort of ganglia where art is a force, a creative force that's using all of us to reproduce itself. And as it reproduces itself, it changes us, the mainframe,

which then changes it. And none of us knows where our work comes from. We just know how to do it, even though we don't know what we're doing. So I guess I should end this podcast right now to say, it's all so good that just get to work, you big babies. Just stop listening right now and go get to work. It's interesting also, right? Because if you think about it, there is this element. If I think about my experience of art through the years and what it does to or for me, you know, both at the same time, you know, in no small part, it captivates me. It stops time. It very often challenges my model of the world, even just of that moment,

and invariably shatters it and invites me to sort of like reimagine it a little bit differently. And there's a fearlessness to it. It inspires me. There's something that gets awakened in me that says there's something more, there's a capacity in this person, in that person, in all of us, in me that I never knew was there. And it's a lot of the same thing that you're describing here. So I can just kind of share it out the way that I never knew was there. And it's a lot of the same thing that you're describing here. So I can just kind of share that the way that I experienced art as well. And I think that's an interesting just sort of topic to visit as well. Because when we use the word art, it's a really big ambiguous word. When you use the word art, what are you actually talking about? I guess I'm thinking, first of all, I'm fine with somebody calling what they make is art. What I guess then I do is say, I'm just going to assume that what you made, think is art. Many diagrams, charts, things like that are astonishing to me in how they

sort of program ideas. My idea of art is you embed thought in material. That's the first thing. The next thing is that each time I see art, and by the way, I should have finished the first thought saying, so if you call this art, what I'm interested in as an annoying art critic who has no degrees and never went to school and didn't start writing until he was 40 years old and had been a long distance fucking truck driver, desperate, exiled, self-exiled, wanting to be in the art world. The job I gave myself was kind of like a hockey goalie where I thought it's going to have to be pretty, pretty good to get by me. So all I'm trying to do is try to figure out why I'm responding to your work or not, and then try to put that into some explanation that's not too boring to read and written in an

academic jargon that really only 155 people understand, and I am not one of them. I've never understood one review in the art world's great, sexy, fantastic, and indispensable school newspaper, which is Artforum magazine. I love it. I've never missed an issue since I was in my 20s. I don't think I've read more than 15 articles, but I'm always amazed that there's this going on and they've pressed forward a lot of great ideas. So another thing that art is, you mentioned Jonathan, is let's say Hamlet is art, even though, by the way, the story was incredibly old, or Romeo and Juliet was very known when Shakespeare wrote his version of Romeo and Juliet. music, she took a known form and changed it by writing Jolene and I Will Always Love You in the same day. Where Shakespeare, in telling the story every one of his time knew by heart, it would be bored the thought of another play about it.

He rewrote what love language is, and he invented something we call young love. He changed the age of his lovers. So that's changing the form. And I find that that's what I'm looking for. Maybe your idea isn't brand new. You didn't invent Hamlet. Every narrative may be quasi in place. Then I want to see how you do your crucifixion and she does hers. And that is the sweet spot for me. And then I'm going to say one more thing because I am alone

all the time. Like most art critics, you think we're out there. I have no social life. I'll talk about that later. What makes Hamlet say great or a Mark Rothko or a Vermeer or a Frida Kahlo or a Georgia O'Keeffe or a Sonata by a Bach is that your Frida Kahlo and my Frida Kahlo is different. And then if it's really good, my Frida Kahlo is different every time I see it. And that's what you had talked about, Jonathan, which is a simple idea. It's a stable thing that is never the same, a bit like you and me. And that's kind of amazing. So you connect on a kind of cosmic, psychic plane to art that way and feel its immateriality in your cells again.

Yeah, no, I love that. And it also reminds me that, you know, I might go back to the same exhibit or the same show multiple times, or, you know, if it's rotating and then three years later, I go back to it and I'm saying to myself, this is so different than what I remember. It's hitting me very differently. And I'm like, is it the thing itself that's hitting me differently? Is it the moment? Is the fact that I have changed and shifted and I bring a different reference to the experience of it? And so it's almost like it's not just the object. It's the relationship that you have to the object. And that shifts and changes over time based on just the circumstance. It's changing in time and context and place and distance from the second it was

made because all art was contemporary art the day it was made. Every Renaissance painting is actually in a huge fight with all the other Renaissance paintings going, well, yeah, Raphael, you're good, but I'm much younger than you, and my name's Michelangelo, and I have a completely different idea of why I should be hired for that ceiling. I think art is the most advanced operating system that our species has ever devised to explore consciousness, the seen, and the unseen worlds. And I just, I love that. And art has done many things in its time. Now it's only a noun, something that we look at. For the first, say, 50,000 years of its existence, it was a verb.

Art was something that did something. It could help you get pregnant or stop you from getting pregnant. The eyes on the side of an Egyptian sarcophagus allows the dead to see out in the afterlife. Like I say, voodoos, voodoo dolls, pictures of saints. St. Luke was supposedly painted a painting. So it has as many uses as there are people that might make it. And I actually sometimes feel sad that we've made it this one thing that are in white rooms, always hung at 52 inches center line or whatever it is for a painting.

And I always want to say, guys, what would happen if you say made a panorama or painted? those things, because that is where the sublime lodged itself for some time in the 1400s to about the 1700s in the West. That's where the sublime lodged itself. Millennia before that, of course, the sublime was in the caves of looking at fire. And then it moved to Neolithic stones. And then in the 19th century, it moved out into nature. And I think I know where the sublime is now before I shut my app. I think, and I really felt this with COVID, that the sublime, the big feeling, the buzz you get from it all is in each other. The sublime is in you. I'd rather be with you, it turns out, two losers chatting, maybe than even standing in

the Grand Canyon. That something happens when we touch antenna, sniff each other's pheromones, say silly things like this to each other. That sometimes when I'm in the Grand Canyon, when I was a truck driver, I went there once and I still remember thinking, getting to the ledge, looking into this amazing thing and thinking, my pants are kind of tight. I did not like the hotel room that much. I might get lonely in there. There was no TV there. And I actually didn't take the hotel room, climbed back in the cab of my truck and left. Loving the Grand Canyon. So art does all that for me. Gets a lot going. It apparently and i think like you know part of what lands with me as you share that is you know that we tend to say art is the thing but maybe art is is actually the in between it is the ether that exists between you and the thing the person the

experience the moment the dynamic and that in fact is the true point of impact. That is what actually moves us deeply. I love what you're saying. Proust said something like, every reader, when she or he is reading a work, is actually reading themselves. And I think that that's an echo, again, of what you're saying, Jonathan, that you're looking at a thing that's looking at you and in that whatever you call the membrane, a good word that I wanted to make a note of and steal. Mayday, mayday.

We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die.

Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet-black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Yeah, and one of the things that you also described is you just shared this notion of, you know one of the things that you also described is um you just shared this notion of you know it is there are a thousand pictures of this or that or you know a person or and yet you know like

yours is different and part of the art is like how is yours different yeah so we're having this conversation at actually a really interesting moment in reference to that point like this will air later but as we have this conversation this week there's actually a case interesting moment in reference to that point. Like this will air later. But as we have this conversation this week, there's actually a case argued in front of the Supreme Court about this picture of a photograph of Prince that was then changed by Warhol. And now it was reused commercially later. And it goes to this whole question of transformation. You know,

like the original photographer says, it's still my picture, even though there's, you know, color put over it. And it's kind of interesting because I actually listened to a little bit of the argument in front of the Supreme Court. And for the first time in a long time, it sounded like the justices were actually having fun. They're kind of being playful about it. And so I'm curious about your take of this notion of, you know, less about just really what is the law, who's right and who's wrong, but the notion of transformation. Like if one person, like first you have Prince who's actually performing on stage or sitting for a picture, that alone is a moment of art. Then you have the capture of it through the photographer's lens. And there and there are you know and it's not just what's being captured through the lens it's it's what they choose to sort of like shoot through the lens and then it gets into the hands of what who was then a very young warhol like very early in his career who decides i'm

going to actually transform this into something else. Because he looked like a prince and he was beautiful. I guess I'm the worst person to ask this because my point of view on this is so unpopular, Jonathan. I actually think that all our ideas of copyright no longer exist. Not a single one. Tell me more. I believe my credo, and I've written this many times, is take anything you want from me. Anything. I have a book coming out. If you took that book, put your name on it, sold it through a big publisher, you could take the money as far

as I'm concerned. If you took my negative review of this podcast and changed all the words to positive reviews with digital technology, I would say, fine. My belief is that artists use materials. The picture of prints, regardless, I'm sorry, artists listening to this or writers like me, regardless of who made the image, that image, even if it's just a digital file, which after all is how 99% of the pictures you now see never existed in physical space and they never will. And with the technologies that we use now become obsolete in the next 10, 15 years, most of them, like the beta videos and the tape players you use, you will never be able to access any of these images again in any event. So for me, I'm afraid I'm the worst person to ask.

I would say use any material you can. And if you can make it original, fine. Even if you want to sell the Jerry Saltz review as your work, be my guest, be my guest. I can't stop you and I don't want to. I'll be irked. I'll be hurt if somebody more powerful, if Matt Damon sells my book as his book, I would so want to get a selfie with him. And then I would probably sue him. But in my heart, I would never sue him and never ask for the money. I would just say he took my material and used it. So don't ask me. This is going to be so unpopular. And I feel bad because more often than not, the powerful take from the powerless. And that is why.

That is why this is an incredibly important and valid question. So I'm just not the man to ask about this at all. I'm 71. I'm stuck back in older ideas. Not so much, not from what I've seen, actually. But I mean, it is interesting, right? Because you have the ideal and you have the idea and then you have the reality. And in no small part, what the question really plays into is not just pedigree or status, but is survivability. I think fundamentally, when you keep asking,

why does that matter? Why does that matter? Why does that matter? At the end of the day, most people will say, because I can't survive unless I can say that I have providence to something and that providence is what has value. That's what we're seeing in the world of digital art now and NFT, which I know you've entered into recently. It's about the're seeing in the world of digital art now and NFT, which I know you've ventured into recently. It's about the provenance at the end of the day. That's where the value lies. And I think it's such an interesting moment right now also because everything's getting blown up around all of these ideas and nobody knows where it's going to land. Nobody does. And again, I'm in favor of everybody listening to this, making money off of their material. I'm just a weird anomaly,

a bug in the system. Cause I'm interested in the material of the system. Maybe that's a pathetically platonic disengaged point of view. And so I feel for every artist out there that says, but that was my photograph of Prince that Andy, the late Andy Warhol, the most openly swish artist in the history of art, probably, who was shot. And I don't know, it's just all, it's all part of the same ball of wax to me so your reference to being fascinated by the systems um as you reference so you start out in in the early days you know the legend is at 19

years old you get exposed to jerry co's the raft of the medusa and it's like a light bulb moment for you you're like this is something that has changed me profoundly and the next decade 15 years or so you're like what would it be like to actually be a working artist? Can I actually do this as the creator myself? You dabble a bit in, I don't want to necessarily say you dabble, you spend some time in the educational side of it. It's not a great fit for you, but then you're bouncing around the Chicago art scene for a while. You get together with some friends, opening a gallery, and you're making work on a daily basis. And something happens where you hit a point where it's like, it's not working for me right now.

And I'm curious because I've heard your take on this moment. And part of my curiosity is, was this an internal combustion, an external combustion, or just yes to all of the above? I think these are great questions. And to fill in the listener, I would just say that I was making art and selling it and showing it in Chicago in the late 70s. So that meant it was in a time when there was no money and no art world. I lived in a 4,000 square foot loft, unheated, with no running water in Chicago, which is really cold, and slept on a mattress in the floor, used a water bucket to help flush the toilet, had a hot plate, and I don't think I was ever happier in my life. I was free. I was a freedom machine, and I would have odd jobs, and the rent was like $125, which seemed like a huge amount,

but that was then. And I would work all day, and I was never happier. And I got the National Endowment for the Arts Grant, which was a huge boon. And I made, I think, $2,500. And I took that money, and I moved to New York. And while I was working here, within the first year or two, the demons that live within all of us descended on me, but all at once. This would put us time-wise also, like early 80s-ish, right? I moved here in 1979. Just before he was killed, I saw John Lennon walking down Madison Avenue with Yoko Ono, and they were the sum of all things. And I did not look directly at them.

Instead, I followed in a wake behind them as I noticed that everyone, as they passed through the crowd, gave them their space, turned to the left or the right, looked away, and the sort of light of forever shone around them. So I was happy here. Yeah. And this was also like, I mean, that's the emergence of the downtown art scene. Yes. This is when like Herring and Basquiat, and this is when like that's all happening here, which on the one hand is amazing. On the other hand, it's got to be like a little bit brutal to step into that. It's interesting. I think I was dumb enough, which you must be, to just think,

well, I've got a shot here. The problem wasn't outside. I'd love to say it was the problems of outside. It was inside. The same voice as every person heard at 3.15 this morning that said, you don't know what you're doing. You don't have any degrees. You have no money. You're not that good looking. You're a bad schmoozer. Your ankles are atrocious. You have no clothes. You didn't go to the right schools. And does this matter? And I listened. And I went a year without making art and pretended I was still an artist. But then I went about two years and I was in my late 20s by then.

And then I self-exiled. I had what I think is earlier a walking nervous breakdown where I couldn't be with people. I think I was having what are now called panic attacks. And I would walk sometimes for five hours a day just to walk myself down and talk to myself. I don't know what was going on. But so I became a long-distance truck driver and left the art world for about 10 years or so. It was really sad because the best physical, psychic, spiritual, social experiences I'd ever had in my life were hanging out with other artists late at night,

talking with, sleeping with, arguing with each other about this funny thing. And I put myself on the outside. The art world, all arts, are an all-volunteer army. That's always a deep content in my work, some weird connection that I always think, I think I know what you feel like, you who made this bad art, or good art, or interesting art. So I try to put that in my work.

That's all. So after a decade then, what brings you back and why instead of coming back and saying, okay, I've had a decade, I've separated from it and hopefully I'm a little wiser, maybe I have a little bit more perspective, whatever it may have been, right? You're better traveled for sure at that point after 10 years trucking. What makes you think or say to yourself, okay, it's time for me to step into the next season. And instead of stepping back into the creation side of art, I'm feeling a calling to step into the critic side of it. In addition to the fact that you also, as you shared, weren't really a writer before this. I'd never written a word. I barely can read, honestly. So what happens there? Tell me about how does the flip get switched?

Well, I think the thing that's going to happen to every listener here, when you finally do rule one of my how to be an artist ideas, work, work, work, work, work. You've got to work. And so it came from desperation, Jonathan. I knew that as terrified as I was to fail, as horrible an artist or art world person or curator or whatever i would want to be that no matter what it was nothing could be worse than how i felt eating colonel sanders chicken drinking coffee peeing in cups driving from morning till night never getting out of the trucks sleeping in motels unable to to meet anybody, buzzing every night. I thought, anything I do will be better than this. And so I thought, what could I do? It never

occurred to me to be an artist again. The demons had put their foot down inside of my mouth, evidently, with that one. So I thought, how could I meet women and be rich and famous? So I thought, maybe critics have that. The woman thing never happened because anybody that knows me knows I don't have the vibe. I just don't. It's a nightmare. They make very little money, it turns out. My wife, one of the art critics for the New York Times, Roberta Smith, and myself are among, say, the last 11, 12, 15 people in the United States writing weekly, and in my case, daily, criticism in print. We are already dead species. I am among the last of my kind. Anyway, I decided, oh, being a critic must be easy. I mean, what's involved with that? You go to galleries, you meet people, you stay up late,

people love you, they're going to give you money. And so I started reading art form in the cabins of the truck all day and all night when I could. And I never understood a word. And I thought, that's exactly how I want to write. The late commodified object of neo-capitalism finds its Marxist simulacra in a paradigm, blah, blah, blah. And I started writing that way. I have no idea what I was writing. And then to make a too long story short, one day a gift came from hell called a deadline. And I put off writing on something and a painter, unknown today, and I put it off and put it off. And finally I thought, oh my God, I have to have this done tomorrow. And by accident,

I wrote what I really thought. And for the first time, I didn't use other people's language on the one hand, and more important for me, and I learned this from my wife, Roberta Smith, I didn't only say why it was good, because even when you watch your favorite baseball team and your favorite directors and your favorite musicians, you don't love everything they do. My God, you can go to the Prado in Madrid and you won't look at every Goya even. So if not all Goya is great, I'm sorry, not all the art that you're going to see or make is great. Is it in play? Maybe.

And so I started by accident writing in my own voice because it had to happen that way and telling what I didn't like and why without being mean. I tried never to punch down ever. And that set me on a whole new path. I may have been no good. I may be no good now. I never identify as a writer, ever. To this day, I have a Pulitzer Prize that I keep here.

This is it. It's so small. It's smaller than an orange. I thought it would be money and a gold belt or something. But even when I got this incredible lucky thing in 2018, to this day, I consider myself more of, your listeners may not know this name, but a Sister Wendy, like folk critic. She was a nun that had a TV show about art, and I just loved, or Bob Ross, or these people that want somehow to create an interface between this intimidating, maybe elitist, because it is a very expensive these days thing, and just us losers in the back of the bus that still love this thing. And we think we can understand

Homer and look at a Jackson Pollock or a Karl Walker and be able to stomach it and process it. So that's what I set out to do. And that's still what I'm doing. I've still never been asked to write for Artform because, my work doesn't belong there. I would stand out like a glockenspiel, or like some weird didgeridoo, some oddball instrument. I don't belong in that orchestra. I'm in this whatever, folk music thing, and who knows what it's worth?

Nothing. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes the Apple Watch Series 10 available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum compared to previous generations iPhone XS or later required

charge time and actual results will vary The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk.

It's interesting, right? Because part of what you decided to do, it sounds like when you say yes to this, is to not try and sort of like keep the gilded walls up to say, listen, I just need to tell it the way I see it. And the way I see it, you self-identifying at that point as more of a commoner with a love for art than an actual artist. Yes, an art lover. Right. And the intention is, can we expand this? Can we make it accessible and available Yes, an art lover. not just the art world, in so many different domains, this really, really big inequality and power dynamic, right? And the art world, for sure. I think that's changing.

And we'll talk about that shortly. And it's a lot of what like your newest book is about, but it's been there and it's been really, really, really imbalanced. So the notion of you being, quote, able to punch down and even build a reputation by being amazing at punching down, it was probably available to you. But there's something inside of you that says, I've been that person. I think I need to be honest, but I can't do that. I love the way you're putting it because you make me sound good when what I thought I was doing was

being frightened because people talk about taking risks all the time. I sometimes think that we spent so much time not taking a risk because it's so horrifying. But the underlying my Instagram, and I hope people do, look at, there's going to be several hundred comments ripping me a new one. And I think that that's fine because I'm intentionally trying to be as vulnerable as I think the artist is in their work. And it's just too easy to pick a nobody and go, this is why that's no good. On the other hand, all critics now do, every review is positive. And I think that this not being critical of art is a way of selling it short. Being critical of art is a way of showing art respect. And now every review of every TV show, movie, book, meal, everything is positive. And I always think, but that can't be true. You're lying. And on the other hand, the set of negative reviews you will read are always on low-hanging fruit, like Jeff Koons or Damien Hirst. Look, Jeff Koons is like a Teletubby Ronald Reagan or something,

you know, and he talks that way. But you just never know when he's going to make a really amazing work of art. He does still do it. I'm not sure about Damien Hirst. He may never have been a great artist. He made two or three great, great pieces. But his great thing that people forget is he de-Englandized England. He and a group of young artists back in around 1990 or so stopped England from just being this little thing that was ignored. And they invented a thing we call Cool Britannia, which grew immediately into Britpop, which grew into the Tate Modern, which grew into the Freeze Art Fair that's going on as I'm recording this with you. And so I give him credit. I give him a lot of credit.

But anyway, punching down bad and low-hanging fruit, that's pathetic. I just get sick of everybody attacking the same seven people. Boring. I mean, and it's also having been not necessarily on the other side of it, but knowing what it's like to show up every day for years and years and years and really just trying to do good work, you know, puts you on the other side of it in a way where, you know, like I would love to believe that there's some empathy informing that as well,

but you brought up another really interesting point, right? Which is, and you kind of referenced it, but you referenced this notion of like everybody's writing only positive reviews. And I wonder if you feel like that's part of, certainly in your newest book, Art is Life, you know, it's sort of like a look at what's happened in the world in the last two decades, really, right? And there have been monumental changes. One that you point out is sort of like the emergence of the quote, like, I think you describe it as the mega gallery, but it's not

just the mega gallery. It's an enterprise built around it, which is designed to effectively king make people. I'm going to divide this into two things. One, and then criticism. The mega gallery. My book, Art is Life, tells the story of art of this century, the 21st century, we may say, and I write this in the book, that from the contested election 2000 of Bush versus Gore through 9-11 and the Bush-Cheney war machine and all the revolutions, all the way to the contested revolution of revolution, election of 2022 till today, none of the art made in this century

has been made under vaguely normal circumstances and that much of that art, therefore, has a deep content of the now. And that part of that deep content is the conflict, the shifting, you know, tectonics, social, economic, cultural, political, political, political. That was on the one hand. On the other, there was the rise of money. More money came into the art world than frankly had ever been here in the history of the world. More schools existed and produced more artists, which created more galleries, which created more collectors and curators and directors and loser older Jewish art critics,

and all of the rest of us. But then something happened in that period, Jonathan, about what you call mega galleries. The answer to every question turned out, we simplified the question of like, what is to be done about the museum? What is to be done about the gallery? What is to be done about the career, about the market? The answer to every one of these questions was, I don't know, is the unspoken part, but let's make it bigger. So everything became more, just like after 9-11. America did not change on 9-11. America, a demonic force, was released into the world that resulted in the annihilation of the then two largest things on earth, a national television before the then four billion people, and that America started

becoming, and is still doing so, more of what it already was. That's what the election of Trump was. He was already there. The answer to every question was make it bigger. So more money came in, prices went up, galleries got bigger, useless gigantic atriums were built in museums, glass walls. MoMA rebuilt itself at a cost of a billion dollars in 2004. And the outside of the building, I always tell famous architects, I'm lucky to know them, you can do anything you want to the outside of your buildings. You can make them look like pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies on the Baltic, shiny triangles. I do not care what you do with the outside of your buildings,

but the inside belongs to art. And what they did is they made the inside of the building filled with staircases, perches, glass, atrium that have to be air conditioned and heated for the rest of time. And collections were cheated. Art was cheated. Artists were cheated. In the art galleries, the honey smell of money must have called hundreds of artists and galleries started multiplying to where Larry Gagosian now has more than 22 locations. And probably you and I will end up working for Hauser Wirth, which actually I think owns an island somewhere off England. I don't know what they all own.

And we should be envious and jealous, but that is just part of the system. In the meantime, art fairs have proliferated, and I could go on and on. On the other hand, with the social changes, finally, art world apartheid started and is more speeding up, coming to an end. That underrepresented artists, women artists, artists of color, disabled, etc., etc., were able to take the stage en masse. This has caused some of that criticism to be all positive. And I understand that. We are seeing stories, Jonathan, that we have never seen in the history of art because of just with the example of women say that 51% of the population's story was never seen before. This is not true in literature, but it was true in my world, the art world, which talked the talk but did not walk the walk. The argument against it these days is, but Jerry, so much of it is mediocre. So many of these TV

shows are mediocre, and the books are mediocre, and the movies. And my answer is, yes, it is mediocre, but it's no more or less mediocre than the mediocre art that got through in the last, say, 250 years. There's a very successful artist. I won't punch down. His name is Sean Scully. Respected, sells for the millions, paints stripes and boxes and squiggles, very handsome abstract paintings, has museum shows. He's mediocre. And I always tell people 85% of the art made during the Renaissance was mediocre. You just never see it. So as an older person, Jonathan, I now accept that change is more important than anything else right now. And that all of the bad art or the

mediocre art, it'll get filtered out. It's not to get our shorts and a wad about. And when I don't like something, I'll say it. And we should talk about, if I can shut my app, what happens when a critic says a woman artist say is bad? What happens is if I say a woman is bad, or if your art is about social justice and I don't like your art, the horrible thing that's happened for a critic is if I don't like your art about social justice, I'm attacked and articles are written and things are run in the New York Post how Jerry Saltz is against social justice. And I always want to go, no, I just didn't like the work. The subject matter is the first thing you see, but you can't only see the subject matter. Again, if you did, all crucifixions would be the exact same.

All bathers by a river, all luncheons on the grass, all cows in a field, all abstract paintings would be the same, but they're not. So I should just take a nap, probably. I'm bored, everyone, because I do spend all day, every day with my wife in the apartment alone. We see 25 or 35 shows a week. We go out, we come home, we speak to demons, how we shouldn't ever be able to write anything because we're not that good. And then we meet our deadline. The last thing I'll say is the one thing I'm most proud of in my job life is I've never missed a deadline. And I recommend any deadline person to never miss one. Don't call your art dealer and go, I broke my wrist, even though you didn't. And I can't do the show.

Just meet the deadline, you big babies. There's a lot to dive into there. But there's one thing that actually, and like you've kind of walked through it, like there's this just complete creative destruction and re-imagining of what's been going on, both in terms of the content and the art itself, but also the system that supports it, that supports artists, that provides access to it. And as you shared on the one hand, you could look at it and say, oh, this is the downfall of everything that was good. But your frame is no, actually, blowing up is change.

And change is good. It's creating more access for more people. And it will all shake out the way that it needs to shake out. So part of my curiosity around that is part of this transition, to a certain extent, is on the one hand, you're seeing the gatekeepers getting bigger and bigger and bigger and more and more and more and more powerful. But simultaneous with that, you are seeing paths to building a body of work, to building direct relationships with people who would enjoy your work, who would support it

financially. These are breaking out into the world. I have a good friend of mine who was a teacher. And then in her 30s, I always assumed that she was not the artistic kid in the family and started just to make illustrations. And for the joy of it and for practice, she decided every day for a year on Instagram, she would post a collection of things or she would post an illustration as a learning tool and accountability mechanism. Fast forward, it's got to be 10 or 15 years right now. And she has built for herself a fantastic career as an illustrator with commissions all over the

place, with commercial collaborations, and also pieces hanging in people's houses in different places. And whether there are enough people who look at the work that she creates and puts out into the world and are moved by it, that she now has been able to bypass all of the old systems and completely control her destiny. And the only person that to her it matters who likes her work are the people that are directly in relationship with her. I'm fascinated by what seems like a simultaneous emergence of the mass expansion of the old system and then simultaneously the proliferation of all sorts of ways to bypass

that system for people who are looking to do that. I love the way you put it. Listeners, read Jonathan, don't read me. You saw how long-winded it took me to get there. But yes, there's these god-awful art fairs that go on 24-7 that probably burn up more carbon, unpacking and getting there than many industries. But on the other hand, look at your Instagrams and see all of these black artists that are there producing bodies of work, being seen for the first time, getting a second chance, a third chance, a fourth chance, like me, from the trucks, where they never would have had that. And the machine, as horrendous as it is, the market, 50% of our collectors are probably far right-wing Republicans and are against every single thing that most of this art says it's about. Those are the same people that like Bruce Springsteen and tell him to shut up and sing, but it doesn't seem to matter.

And I write this, you might've read it. This is the time of paradox. It may be obscene and growing and far too expensive. I mean, you know, a new artist now might cost $75,000. And that to me is not great. I think it's a self-defeating system, but you know what? It hasn't defeated itself yet. And there are all these rich people that are still willing to do it. I think also what you bring up is that the gatekeeper question, this is a game changer. When I first posted on Facebook,

whenever that was, 15 years, 12 years ago, And accidentally, instead of writing, I went to the dentist today. I wrote, I made, without thinking, I put a picture of Marlene Dumas, a very well-known Dutch figurative painter. And I said, this is why I don't like her work. And on that day, Jonathan, instead of like 35, 40 people saying, yes, I went to the doctor too. It's very cold in autumn. All of a sudden, 500 people came on my Facebook who I never knew were out there. It told me why I was a jackass. And within one second, I saw the whole thing. I saw a way out of my dilemma, which was the pyramidical structure that you are referring to of the one speaking

down to the many. And I saw in an instant that on Facebook, there were no other platforms. And on Facebook, you could have the many speak to one another and that this could be major. And I went on to do it in a little bit in Twitter. I'm much weaker there because you have to be smarter and snappier. And that isn't my style. I'm a little long-winded for 149 characters or whatever it is. And especially Instagram. I used to be on those power 100 art lists and all the magazines. And I remember about eight years ago, one of them warned me the last year I was on saying, Jerry Salt is this and that, and he's one of the 56 most powerful. But they warned me. They said, however, if he keeps practicing art

criticism online, he will devalue the field. And I never looked back from then. I just thought, yeah, your definition of my definition of success and the field and the expanded field is totally different. And I can't get in your game. You won't let me in your game. And anyway, the top 40 people on your list are your advertisers. What the hell am I supposed to do? I can't afford a $15,000 color ad. So the gatekeepers being down means that you can have a career and an audience that

is not as big as say, you know, Jeff Koons, but maybe you don't need the whole bloody world to be loving your work and buying it. It's possible. And I'm telling you, I know it happens. Five or 10 collectors could support you. One curator, two critics, and you only need to fake out one dealer, pull the wool over her or his eyes, and think that your work is any good. And if they stick with you, all of this is in motion. What you describe is true. Access is changed. Again, crapola gets through, but I'm crapola, and I got through, And then it's my job to stay in play. Yeah, no, so agree. And it is amazing to see the pace of change accelerate also.

It's breathtaking and slightly terrifying because if you try and keep up with it, it can brutalize you at the same time. It's hard. The other thing I just wanted to bring up is this notion of, and you've written about this and you've spoken about it, but it's also really emerging in all the different things that you're talking about here is the role of cynicism. It seems like that cynicism has been turned into an industry to a certain extent in the name of valued criticism or arbiters of cutting all of the noise in the name of really finding the signal.

And yet, it can be such a devastating weight. Terrible. You're open. You'll be direct. You'll critique. You will say exactly what's on your mind. But it's never from the place of a cynic. It's always from the place of hope and possibility. I love what you're saying because I think that cynicism, contrary to everyone's belief, doesn't cut out the noise. It cuts out the signal. or why that picture of a young Ecuadorian man dancing is selling to a museum. When you think you know that, you actually stop knowing whatever it is that's in the work and where it fits and how it fits. I have two rules on Instagram, and I made them up that same day on Facebook. One, you may call me any name you wish.

I have elephant skin and I recommend that all people that live in our world of any creativity accept rejection, but not be defined by it. I have elephant skin, but you may not call anybody else in this thread a name because that's when things go to hell. Everybody starts fighting and I can't even keep track. The other thing is I block cynics. That means when you say, well, I know why she got the show. Her father is a trustee at MoCA, blah, blah, blah. And I always tell people the same way every person listening to this comes to hear from trauma. Every work of art has courage in it. Even if my work is no good, somehow I mustered what little I have to put together into this bad review. You've made your

bad macrame, whatever it is. And I always dismiss cynics because they make me sleepy. They make me sad. Cynicism thinks it knows things when it knows fuck nothing. Certitude to me is the enemy of art. Like I say, art is a paradox. More than one thing is true at a time about it. So that's where I'm coming from. And like I say, it's an all-volunteer army. And if you want to come, come. Just stay up late every night with other vampires like you, make a small gang, protect each other at all costs, and go for it. If somebody like me can get anything, I promise you, you were never a bigger loser or poorer, possibly. That could be wrong, than I was. So go for it. What do you have to lose? Really? I love that. So please do that. And that feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well. So in this container of a good life project,

if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up for you? First, I would say time. You must define success, not as happiness, because I'm successful and I'm not happy all the time. I'm successful and I'm not happy all the time. I'm successful and I don't have a lot of money. So it's not money. I'm successful and I have recognition, but critics are lost. The minute they die, most people listening to this have never read the most famous art critic that ever lived. What's his name? Clement Greenberg. They read two essays by him, but they haven't really read his work. So it isn't eternity and immortality.

What it is is time. What I want you to have in your work is the time to make your work, whatever that is. Muster the courage to make it and make an enemy of envy because if you spend that doom scrolling first 90 minutes of instagram or whatever you're scrolling looking at others and how pretty their ankles are and how rich they are and why they're in Venice and you're not, envy will eat you alive. It will really eat you alive. And so make an enemy of envy today. And that to me will set

you on living a really good life. Will you walk around instead of your big green eyeballs looking out, they'll be looking in and it's not so bad. You'll be thinking, I'm a fucking genius. Then you have to prove something. So that's the good life to me. And take better care of your teeth. Thank you. Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode, safe bet you'll also love the conversation that we had with Maria Garcia, where she takes a look at what you could argue is one of the most iconic performers and artists of our time.

Somebody who affected millions and millions of people, Selena, and really dives into her story. Not just critiquing it the way that Jerry might look at certain artists, but deconstructing the deeper issues and messages and how it has affected so many people for so many years. You'll find a link to Maria's episode in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did since you're still listening here, would you do me a personal favor, a seven second favor and share it maybe on social or by text or by email, even just with one person, just copy the link from the app you're

using and tell those, you know, those you love, those you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better. So we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy. Tell them to listen. Then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot.

Flight Risk.