Artist Tim Rice in his North Berkeley studio In Christopher Bollen‘s recent joint interview with Jerry Saltz and Roberta Smith—the leading power couple in the world of art critics—the topic of studio visits came up. Neither Smith nor Saltz do them, and they listed a number of reasons why. Here is Saltz’s response: I think […]
Roberta Smith
- Aesthetics
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Refuge in the Not
Motoi Yamamoto (Photo: My Modern Met) Roberta Smith‘s response to the recent art auctions, Art Is Hard to See Through the Clutter of Dollar Signs, included a quote that has taken on a life of its own and is showing up everywhere online. After describing the spectacle of all time high prices and hedge fund […]
- Aesthetics
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The Guyton Files
Jerry Saltz‘s Facebook page is a world unto itself. With as many “friends” as the Facebook Police will allow, Jerry regularly posts provocative questions that spark conversations that can go on for days, garnering responses from hundreds of artists of every age and stripe. What began as an experiment quickly took on a life of […]
Art for Anyone
There are a few voices in my world who consistently ring true, like that neighbor who puts things back into perspective after a robbery down the street has everyone unduly fixated on urban crime. Jerry Saltz is one of those guys in the art world, and I repeatedly find his “set it right” point of […]
- Aesthetics
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Ken Price, The Glenn Gould of Object Makers
Ken Price: Bolivar, Fired and painted clay Ken Price passed away last week. He was one of the group of under-appreciated West Coast artist from the 60s whose works are finally being given the visibility they have long deserved. (This has been helped immeasurably by the mega-exhibit called Pacific Standard Time which I wrote about […]
Cling Film Conceptualism and Other Biennial Woes
From the deCordova Biennial, a work by Cambridge-based Joe Zane (Photo: Carroll and Sons Gallery)* OK. I haven’t seen the show yet. But Sebastian Smee‘s Boston Globe review of the newly-opened deCordova Biennial rang true of so many shows that I have seen lately: I thought we had outgrown smarty-pants biennials, filled with arcane and […]
Our Eyes and Ourselves
New work, “Snap 1” and “Snap 2” (diptych), in my studio before being shipped out this week Three critics at the New York Times were given the assignment of naming their favorite paintings in New York Museums. The lists can be found on the New York Times site, but as critic Roberta Smith freely confesses, […]
The Whitney and Other Museum Sorrows
Roberta Smith continues her one-woman campaign (or so it seems—are there others on this bandwagon?) of bringing thoughtful and reasonable thinking to the world of art making, viewing and buying. Like so many other subcultures, this is one that regularly runs off the rails and into the hollers of ego, greed and elitism. Her recent […]
- Aesthetics
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Painting is Dead, Long Live Painting
Roberta Smith keep the dialogue about contemporary painting current and vital. Regarding that old saw, “painting is dead,” Smith is consistent in her refusal to buy in. In today’s New York Times Arts section (I refuse to call that part of the paper by its full title, Arts & Leisure since it is irritatingly effete, […]
- Aesthetics
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A Week’s Worth of Responses to Smith’s “Post-Minimal to the Max”
Terry Winters, Freeunion (Photo: Matthew Marks Gallery) Winters was highlighted as one of Carol Diehl’s favorite “overlooked” artists. He’s on my list too. Over the week since Roberta Smith published her article, Post-Minimal to the Max in the Sunday Times (I wrote about it here) the floodgates opened. Do a search and you will find […]