On today's episode of WNYC's new popup advice show, Tiffany Hanssen leads a conversation about enriching our lives with art, with Jerry Saltz, senior art critic at New York Magazine. Listeners call in with their questions, experiences and tips for curating a personal practice of art appreciation.
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Tiffany Hansen: Welcome to Please Advise, a pop-up advice show here at WNYC. I'm Tiffany Hansen. During this hour, on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, we talk with experts, authors, advocates, and others to get their advice on all sorts of topics. Since The Armory Show opens tomorrow, showcasing contemporary and modern art and, more broadly, because fall really is the time here in New York when new art exhibitions are popping up at galleries and museums around the boroughs, we thought it was a good time to talk art.
Whether you're a sophisticated art enthusiast or somebody who hasn't stepped into a museum in years, we would love to hear from you. The topic specifically today is art appreciation. Are you trying to develop an appreciation for art? Are you intimidated by it? Maybe you're wondering how to expand your viewing beyond that one section of the Met or at the MoMA where you always go; maybe you find yourself wondering what all the hype is about about a particular work of art.
Call us, text us. 212-433-9692. We're also calling artists, curators, teachers, any wisdom to share, which I love to hear from you? What advice do you have for people who are struggling to connect with art, whether it's yours or anybody else's? Call us, text us. 212-433-9692. Our guide today is the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Jerry Saltz. Jerry is the senior art critic at New York Magazine. He's been writing about New York's artists, galleries, exhibitions, and art culture for more than 30 years. Hey, Jerry, thanks for being here.
Jerry Saltz: Great to be here, Tiffany.
Tiffany Hansen: All right. Well, let's get started with just sort of a meta question. What do we mean when we say art?
Jerry Saltz: Wait a minute. Art is for anyone.
Tiffany Hansen: There you go.
Jerry Saltz: It's just not for everyone. I never went to school. I have no degrees. I was a long-distance truck driver. I just had to be around art, so even if you have no education at all, it's fine. In addition to that, I would say think of art as the most advanced operating system our species has ever developed to explore consciousness. To explore consciousness, the seen and the unseen world.
You can't take a photograph of hell. You can't say what a sunny morning feels like; some people can. Art goes into places that many people find beyond words, and that is where I find meaning, and I would also add that you have to not think of art as a thing. Art is not a dead thing hanging at 53 inches center on a wall in a museum or a gallery; it is that, but beyond that, it's something that does something to you. Art in that sense is a verb. Art is not about understanding. That means it doesn't matter what you say this crucifixion is about, and I say what it's about; it matters your response, your experience of it.
Tiffany Hansen: Do you mean both positive and negative experience?
Jerry Saltz: Well, 100%. Except in our time, I have to be really honest, Tiffany. I came up, and I practice a kind of criticism where I will say what I like and why, and what I don't like and why, where I think a work is sort of coasting on its accomplishments, original, unoriginal, but today, negative criticism is not really practiced. It's not valued. When I rate a woman's work as bad, I'm a misogynist; if I don't like a Hispanic artist, I'm a racist; if I don't like a queer artist, it goes on and on. Everything is identity art. If you think about it, the work that you make, the work that I make, it's about our identity. One identity cannot be the sole criteria used for judging art, for writing about it, thinking about it, and we are in a period where that is sort of going on.
Tiffany Hansen: Well, because there are many circumstances, I would imagine, where someone doesn't know anything about the person who made whatever it is they're looking at, be it sculpture, be it a painting, a charcoal drawing, and so are you saying that critique should necessarily live outside of who made it?
Jerry Saltz: Yes and no. What I think is it's a critic's job, it's a viewer's job to kind of know as much as possible about who made it or the artist's idea of what it is, but as my wife, the art critic Roberta Smith, the former co-chief critic for The New York Times, has said, artists do not own the meaning of their own work. What it means to you might be very different.
For example, there's a huge show of Taryn Simon up at the Guggenheim Museum. Huge crowds are seeing it, and I have not seen the show yet, but I've been somewhat critical of her work. Gorgeous photographs, but there are long, long, long wall labels that you have to read on every single image in order to know what exactly is being given to you, and I would ask: is the thought, therefore, in the material, in the image, in the object of the work, or does the thought exist, frankly, away from the art in an explanatory wall label? If that's so, I'm not sure how much work the art is doing and how much work the label is doing.
Tiffany Hansen: I got you.
Jerry Saltz: Not to be critical, but just to raise different ideas for listeners to think about.
Tiffany Hansen: Think about as you go see it, sure. Well, we are talking with Jerry Saltz. He's the Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic, a senior art critic at New York Magazine, about art appreciation, and we'd love to hear from you. Do you have some thoughts about how you go about it? What is your philosophy in terms of appreciating art? Do you have some advice for others who are maybe struggling to find a way to appreciate and connect with art?
212-433-9692. You can call us. You can text us at that number. We do have a texter here, Jerry. Paul from Queens would like to start by saying, "Appreciating art begins by looking at the art with your eyes and not pushing people out of the way with your cell phone so you could take a picture. The works are generally well produced in many books and catalogs, and online. You don't need to go all the way to the museum to take a picture. I think museums should ban practice to encourage people to actually look at and experience the works." Okay, Jerry, you're laughing.
Jerry Saltz: Well, of course we all agree with that, but I'm guilty as charged.
Tiffany Hansen: Uh-oh.
Jerry Saltz: I know. I take pictures of anything.
Tiffany Hansen: Why? Why do you do that? Just because you're going to go back and refer to it later when you're writing about it, or?
Jerry Saltz: That's a big reason. I'm taking details. I could claim it's all from my work, but there's more. Follow me on Instagram @jerrysaltz. I post a lot of art, and I'm always thinking about what I might want to post, and I like to post my own pictures. I never ask for anybody else's, so I'm not rude. I promise I'll let you do your looking, and I'll step in the minute you don't. I do have one piece of advice for anybody trying to look at a specific work of art that there's always a line in front of or like Van Gogh's Starry Night at MoMA, which you should see, it's your job.
Tiffany Hansen: Sure.
Jerry Saltz: What you can do is you stand near it and stare at the work of art very intently. Whatever the work is, people will look at you and think, "Oh, I should be looking at that," and they come over there, and they stand next to you, and then, boom, you run back, get in front of Starry Night, take your picture, do some looking.
Tiffany Hansen: And you're out of there.
Jerry Saltz: Yes, it works 100%. Don't tell anybody I told you this.
Tiffany Hansen: No, we won't do that. Jerry, I'm going to have you put your headphones on, because we're going to take a caller here, and I want you to be able to hear Adriana in Brooklyn Heights. Hi, Adriana.
Adriana: Hi, good morning. Jerry, I'm a big admirer of your work.
Jerry Saltz: Thank you.
Adriana: Thanks for taking my call. My question relates to the previous callers dealing with crowds during shows. I actually missed the Met's show on Raphael because I couldn't deal with the crowds. We attempted to see it several times, and it's just too much. Living in New York, we get these fantastic shows, but they come with mobs and tourists that are there just to take a selfie with the photos, like you were just saying. Do you have tips on-- other than the strategy that you just recommended about--
Tiffany Hansen: Which is good. Which is a good one.
Jerry Saltz: I do.
Tiffany Hansen: Thanks, Adriana.
Jerry Saltz: I think it's really a great point that, in a way, art has become a victim of its own success. We've all gone to MoMA, for example, in the last few years, and it's frankly an unpleasant place environmentally to look at art because it is so crowded, and the Raphael show, that was sort of hellish. I guess my only recommendation is a couple of things. I would go very early or very late; I would, the way I go to the opera because it's now too expensive, and I try to get cheap seats, standing room only, and then sneak in. I wait for horrible weather, and I go, boom, that's the day. Now, I don't mean hot or cold; I mean rainy.
Tiffany Hansen: Torrential rain?
Jerry Saltz: Yes.
Tiffany Hansen: Okay.
Jerry Saltz: Where people don't like to go out, but your point is very well taken, and I would say go anyway. It's a nightmare. You'll hate yourself, but you'll see one or two little things that can help change how you see the world.
Tiffany Hansen: Speaking of lines and throngs of crowds, one of the questions that I was going to ask you was about what a truly sublime art experience looks like for you and something that was truly horrible, so since we're talking about crowds, let's start with the truly horrible, and I'll tell you mine.
Jerry Saltz: Okay.
Tiffany Hansen: It was when I first moved to Paris, and I know that's okay. That's a bad way to start.
Jerry Saltz: You're in trouble.
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Tiffany Hansen: Bad way to start that, but I went to the Louvre. Everybody wants to see the Mona Lisa. It's a nightmare. She's behind the Plexiglas now, and it was probably the most unpleasant experience I've had at a museum, bar none, and I think it affected the way I think about the work, and it just was a horrible experience, and I don't know if there was a way around it at this point.
Jerry Saltz: Boy, we've all been there, Tiffany. I've tried to; I've given up. I think there are certain works of art that should be given a rest; I think that the Mona Lisa is one. Put it in a salt mine for 100 years with other super popular works. Let it rest. It's had so many people looking at it that we may be hurting it, and I would add, and this is true, in any great museum, any good museum, next to the Mona Lisa is a far superior work of art by the same artist, Leonardo da Vinci, called Madonna of the Rocks. If you turn just to your left, you will see an astounding composition of figures around a dark grotto. The Mona Lisa itself, you may look at it. I did, and I started thinking, "It's a bit brown. It's a bit dark. Well, why is it so dark?"
Tiffany Hansen: I have to say, that's exactly what I thought.
Jerry Saltz: Well, what's going on here?
Tiffany Hansen: Like, "What's the fuss about?"
Jerry Saltz: The fuss is about other people making a fuss; in short, it's like all those people that climb Everest. They say, "I had a dream I climbed Mount Everest." No, you didn't. You are having other people's dreams, and that is indicative of our moment. Have your own dreams. Pursue your own obsessions, no matter how bizarre. If you find yourself walking into the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo's creation of the universe, and you walk in like a friend of mine, and you go, "Wow, look at the floor," and that's good; that means you have a proclivity for tile work, stone, pattern. Everything you're seeing is telling you a ton. Pay attention. That's the rule. Pay very close attention. Get very quiet within yourself.
Tiffany Hansen: All right, let's talk with Kimberly in Brooklyn Heights. Hi, Kimberly. Welcome to Please Advise.
Kimberly: Hi. Thank you. Hi, Jerry. How are you?
Jerry Saltz: Hey, Kimberly, what's up?
Kimberly: Hey. I love that you gave a nod to Taryn Simon. I work at the Guggenheim as an educator for 26 years and counting, and I talk about art with people of all ages, all backgrounds, and my advice to them is always to see, think, and wonder. Look at something. Stand there and look at it for a minute, and then think about what you're looking at, and then wonder something, maybe have a question; the artist isn't there, but ask the question to yourself. I see art as, I've always seen art, as a bridge to everything, and also a way to help us use our perception to strengthen that muscle that we typically don't do.
Jerry Saltz: That's beautiful, Kimberly.
Kimberly: Thank you. Thank you, and I see you everywhere. I'm everywhere, too. I'm looking at everything. I take people to galleries, to museums outside of the Guggenheim.
Jerry Saltz: Well, say hi next time.
Kimberly: I always do, and you always say hi back.
Jerry Saltz: Oh, good.
Tiffany Hansen: Well, good.
Jerry Saltz: I would only add this to what you're saying: I would say if you want to get even more intimate with a work of art, it's possible to look at the person next to you; this doesn't apply to men, because you come off creepy if you say this to women, so shut up, men. You should look at the person next to you and say, "What are you seeing? What do you think?" and that person will blow your mind, and then you'll share what you're seeing. Ask yourself, "What am I seeing?"
Tiffany Hansen: I like that advice, Jerry. Thank you. Also, thank you, Kimberly. Appreciate that. Let's talk with Barbara in Manhattan. Hi, Barbara.
Barbara: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I have a bit of a different take on Mr. Saltz. I love seeing crowds in the greatest museums in the world, in New York, because without them, the museums couldn't stay open, so I'm thrilled that all these people, especially with children, are taking the opportunity to see what New York has available and going to galleries that would be museums in any other city. New York, it's just an extraordinary place, so the more people, for me, yes, it obscures sometimes, but I love the participation.
Tiffany Hansen: Thanks, Barbara. Appreciate that.
Jerry Saltz: 100%.
Tiffany Hansen: Yes. There's a fine line, I suppose, between thinking that what we're seeing is turning us into art lemmings versus it just means that we're excited.
Jerry Saltz: Yes, and we don't really want to be alone. You know what? You're really right. We don't want to be alone in a museum. I have been many times, and it's great, but I, too, miss people. We love being around each other, so I agree with you. It's a paradox, and it only applies to New York, Paris, sometimes in London, et cetera. We're victims of our own success.
Tiffany Hansen: We have a texter here who says, "I'm interested in understanding more about the etiquette of going to galleries to see art, galleries where the art is exhibited, but they're also for sale. Sometimes I hesitate to wander in because I have no interest in or ability in purchasing anything, so I feel like I'm entering a milieu that I don't really understand very well. Any thoughts on this? Maybe I'm overthinking it."
Jerry Saltz: That's a really good question. Go into galleries. Why? They're free. You can go in. Nobody will bother you. Every dealer- and I'm talking from the empire of money, Gagosian, all the way to the bottom- they love viewers. The people that work at galleries are exactly like you and me. They have two roommates living in some dump out in Queens; their laundry is in a pile on the floor; they're poor.
Tiffany Hansen: You don't think we're being judged when we go in there? Like, "Oh, are they?"
Jerry Saltz: You're not.
Tiffany Hansen: Okay.
Jerry Saltz: You're not. I know they seem snooty, but there's a reason that people behind desks can seem snooty, and what it is is all art dealers are missing the same chromosome. It makes them control freaks. They are not rich themselves, by and large, most dealers, and they want to know everything going on within their domain at every second. If I, as an art critic, walk in and they're not told, and they later find out because inevitably they will, the person could get yelled at, or there's always somebody asking, "How much does it cost?" and they're not supposed to give out the prices.
I would just say, go in, look around, spend more than 25 seconds in the space, walk all the way around, find one thing you like and one thing you don't, and tell yourself why you like it and why you don't. You're starting to teach yourself about this beautiful thing called your taste, your sensibility. You are a freedom machine. You are a sensibility machine. Every single thing you take in can become part of what you will eventually put back out, so just keep going. They're free, for God's sake.
Tiffany Hansen: Yes. Speaking of people that work in these museums, galleries, we have a texter here who says, "Any advice for a novice on how to utilize the amazing people who work in New York City museums and galleries without being a nuisance or embarrassing myself?"
Jerry Saltz: Right. I guess nothing you could say could embarrass you, I promise you.
Tiffany Hansen: Jerry.
Jerry Saltz: What could you say? Think of anything. "Can I use the bathroom?" Probably not. What else?
Tiffany Hansen: "Who brought this stuff in here?"
Jerry Saltz: Yes, "Why should I consider this art?" If the person behind the desk has time, which invariably they don't.
Tiffany Hansen: Right.
Jerry Saltz: But if they do, they'll tell you. They'll share their ideas. Just don't come off like a jerk. Don't be a jerk if you're feeling scared of the work. Look, I walk into lots of galleries, and I go, "This is going to be a bad show," but I don't turn around and walk out; you've got to, like I said, walk around, find one thing you like. What?
Tiffany Hansen: Do you surprise yourself in moments like that?
Jerry Saltz: Well, I think everybody would. You never know what you like until you like something; you never know what you're not going to like until you dislike it. The problem is people look at it and go, "Meh, this is not going to be for me." You're right, it's true, but you just never know. How do you know you don't like paintings? For example, I talked to an art critic once, and they said, "I don't like paintings," and I said, "How do you even know that? You don't know." Every work of art is telling you something you've never known before in your entire life until the instant you saw this thing. It might be boring; it might be unoriginal; it might be bleh, but it's telling you something.
Tiffany Hansen: Too brown.
Jerry Saltz: Yes?
Tiffany Hansen: Or too brown.
Jerry Saltz: Too brown. Yes, it's too brown. Rembrandt.
Tiffany Hansen: We're talking with Jerry Saltz. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic and the senior art critic at New York Magazine. Listeners, we're looking for advice here on how to appreciate art, how to expand our boundaries, how to maybe find something in something we thought we would never find something in. 212-433-9692. You can call us; you can text us at that number.
Also, artists, curators, teachers, any wisdom to share? Love to hear from you as well. 212-433-9692. Call us, text us at that number. We're going to continue our conversation with Jerry Saltz in just a minute. You are listening to Please Advise. It's a pop-up advice show here at WNYC. I'm Tiffany Hansen. Stick around with us.
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Tiffany Hansen: Welcome back to Please Advise. It's a pop-up advice show here at WNYC. I'm Tiffany Hansen. Today we're talking about art appreciation. What would you like to know the next time you step into a gallery, to maybe sort of blow your mind about something you're going to see that you might not have expected to have happen to you? I'm talking in circles, Jerry. We're talking with Jerry Saltz. He's the Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic, senior art critic at New York Magazine, about art appreciation. 212-433-9692. Jerry, we're just going to dive in here with Judith in Socrates. Hi, Judith.
Judith: Hi. Hi.
Jerry Saltz: Hi.
Judith: I first of all wanted to respond to something about going to galleries. I live in the Hudson Valley. We have fabulous, fabulous galleries. Everyone is welcome. Everyone feels welcome. There's no snootiness, so I'd like to encourage people to come up here on almost any weekend, actually, and there'll be gallery openings that you can go to and an absolutely beautiful, beautiful environment in general.
Tiffany Hansen: Good plug.
Judith: That's number one.
Tiffany Hansen: All right.
Judith: Number two is the way that I go. I go to galleries. I really very rarely go into the city, so I don't go to museums that often, but what I do in a gallery is I choose one wall or just limit it to about maybe six different pieces, and I look at it, and I make a decision as to which one I would like to steal. I think that was an idea in The New York Times, from the art critic in The New York Times, like decades and decades ago, and I like the idea of the steal thing because it makes you think about what you'd actually be willing to give your life to have.
Tiffany Hansen: I love it. I love it, Judith.
Judith: The other thing that's really nice about that is if I try to do that with another person and we each stand there and look at that one wall and then we go on to the next, but anyway, we look at a wall, and we say, "Okay, which one would you like to steal?" and we're silent.
Tiffany Hansen: Yes. All right, Judith. Hey, that's a really good point, too, Jerry, about your comment about community and art and talking to the person next to you. When it is a communal experience, can it elevate? I'll ask the question: can it elevate the experience for you?
Jerry Saltz: 100%. It's so great to experience, like I was talking about earlier, the healing power of art. Art is not just something good or bad. We don't ask, "What does it mean?" We never ask, "What does Mozart mean?" You experience it, and you share with others. What's wrong?
Tiffany Hansen: Well, I wonder, though, because I'm going to talk about a particular piece of art.
Jerry Saltz: Good.
Tiffany Hansen: The banana taped to the wall.
Jerry Saltz: Oh, yes.
Tiffany Hansen: Right?
Jerry Saltz: Yes.
Tiffany Hansen: I look at that, and that is absolutely the first question that pops into my mind.
Jerry Saltz: Is it art?
Tiffany Hansen: What does it mean?
Jerry Saltz: What does it mean? Okay, you want me to answer-
Tiffany Hansen: I do.
Jerry Saltz: -the age-old question of what the hell is the damn banana thing?
Tiffany Hansen: Yes.
Jerry Saltz: First of all, it is a fantastic or a rare example of an absolutely crapola work of art that opens up a lot of questions. 99.99% of crapola opens no questions. It's a bit like Marcel Duchamp's Fountain. The urinal. Yes, it's just a urinal tipped on its side; it's very male-coded; I think that that deserves a lot more thought. What would a female equivalent toilet kind of item be? I don't know, but I'd like to know.
It asked, in its case, what is art? Maurizio Cattelan, who made Comedian, the banana, opens up similar questions. He's saying, "What is it to exhibit art in a vast public art fair where it's almost instantaneously a spectacle? What do we pay to appreciate or to diss on that spectacle? How are we part of that spectacle?" I, in fact, was so interested in the idea that I made my own at home and got a plastic banana and got a piece of Gaffer's tape, and it's on my fridge right now, and I love looking at it. I would never want to own it. Justin Sun, the loser billionaire who I hate because he's a billionaire, and it's our job as Americans to hate people with more money than we have, but he likes that he owns it. I don't think anybody--
Tiffany Hansen: Didn't say he was going to eat the banana?
Jerry Saltz: Yes, he did what every--
Tiffany Hansen: It's his banana.
Jerry Saltz: Yes, it's like, "My banana. I'm going to eat it." Good for you. Good for you. It's so obvious. It's like the people that go to Mount Everest, again, so he's just part of the piece. Yes, hate on works of art, but again, ask yourself, "What is this work doing?"
Tiffany Hansen: Yes. All right. Jerry, let's bring in Acacia in Greenpoint into our conversation. Hi, Acacia.
Acacia: Hi. I just have some advice for people trying to get into going to see art: go with a plan. Don't try to go see every gallery in Chelsea on a Sunday. Everything will run together. Don't try to go to the Met and see everything. Pick one thing, go to it, and then look at it really well and discuss, or else you run the risk of "gallerrhea" is what my family calls when everything just runs together.
[laughter]
Tiffany Hansen: Good term. Good term, Acacia. Appreciate that. Appreciate the call.
Jerry Saltz: I go to between 25 and 30 art shows in galleries a week. The reason I do that is it's my job. I get paid. I have to see the good, the bad, and the very bad galleries that normal people would never go to, but that's part of my job. Like this person just said, don't go to too much because it really will all run together. Pick five galleries to go to and then go out for coffee.
Artists are even worse. I run into artists in Chelsea, for example, and they'll say, "I'm here seeing shows," and I say, "How many shows?" They go, "One," and then they go meet a friend for lunch; then they meet somebody for drinks; then they go to dinner; they're just lazy. No, I love them. We love artists. They're tortured, but you know; you know what I'm saying, artists.
Tiffany Hansen: Yes, artists. The asterisks on that statement. Jack in Chinatown, hi. Welcome to Please Advise, Jack.
Jack: Hi, Jerry and Tiffany. I want to tell you about how I learned to appreciate art. I was someone who could walk through a museum, and it'd be fine, but I never felt I could appreciate a painting in the same way as I could a novel or a poem. I was hanging out with a lot of writers, academics, these sorts of people who love to do reading groups, and I thought, "Well, why don't we do this sort of thing for visual art?"
Many of them felt they had no formal education in visual art, and they didn't know how to engage with it, so I created the Looking Group, which is like a reading group for visual art, where we meet weekly at a museum off in the Met and just go a gallery at a time, spend a few hours, talk about four or five works very seriously, and really spend time with the artwork, and it's been fantastic.
Jerry Saltz: Good idea.
Tiffany Hansen: Yes, it's a great idea, Jack. Thank you so much. We're back to that idea of making art a communal experience.
Jerry Saltz: Yes, but on the other hand, Jack and listeners, that's a great idea, but also, like I said, I think it helps to get-- oftentimes when I'm in a gallery, a gallerist, a dealer will come out and start blabbing to me, and I feel important and like, "Oh, good, they know who I am."
Tiffany Hansen: "They know who I am."
Jerry Saltz: But it's very annoying, and so now when they do this, I look at them, and I go, "Stop talking. I can't hear myself. See?" It never works, but I try.
Tiffany Hansen: Do you ever wear a disguise?
[laughter]
Jerry Saltz: Even food critics don't do that anymore, so that's gone.
Tiffany Hansen: All right, then.
Jerry Saltz: In the age of Instagram.
Tiffany Hansen: Oh, sure. All right. Alexandra in Long Island City. Hi, Alexandra. Welcome to Please Advise.
Alexandra: Hi. Thank you for having me, and thank you for this great segment. I am a working artist, born and raised in New York City. I was raised going around to galleries and museums and also auction houses, and I wanted to say I worked at Robert Miller Gallery in the '90s, and two things. One, remember: everyone who goes into the galleries, if you feel intimidated, everyone who works there is there because they love art, and they're thrilled that you love art, too, and also two more things.
Auction houses, they open their doors to everyone; they're incredibly welcoming; you get to see amazing, amazing museum-quality works before they go back into private collections. Christie's even has a free coffee bar, which is unbelievable in New York City. They're all so gracious. Then also my studio complex in Long Island City has a big open studio every-- I think it's May, so just keep your eyes out for that. Artists love to have people wander through, and there are so many ways. It's again a communal experience.
Tiffany Hansen: Yes, thank you for that.
Alexandra: Auction houses are incredibly welcoming.
Tiffany Hansen: Yes, thanks, Alexandra. We really appreciate that. We haven't really talked about auction houses, Jerry.
Jerry Saltz: Well, Alexandra's right. They show remarkable work, but I also need to remind people that the artists, if they're living, the living artist gets no money from that sale whatsoever, and the work is on exhibit for three or four days, and that's great for people to see, but really, you have to think also of auction houses as the last time you will ever see this work of art before it's sold forever into private hands again, and it gets me upset. I really feel like auction houses are part of a problem that just keeps flipping art and turning it over and turning it into money.
Tiffany Hansen: But shouldn't people collect art?
Jerry Saltz: Of course they should, but certain art feels to me like it should be in the public, a great painting by whoever, and I get a little freaked out about seeing this work get ballyhooed when it comes up at Sotheby's or Christie's and then sold, and you never see it again. I don't know. I wish there was a way that museums could get them, but museums cannot afford this. They don't have the money.
Tiffany Hansen: Before we leave the topic of collecting, I can't find it in my notes here, but there was a documentary I saw in the early 2000s.
Jerry Saltz: Herb?
Tiffany Hansen: Herb and Dorothy. Herb and Dorothy.
Jerry Saltz: Herb and Dorothy. Yes, right. The collectors.
Tiffany Hansen: Yes, the Vogels. It was a very inspirational story about a couple of collectors who devoted their life to collecting mostly modern, contemporary art.
Jerry Saltz: Absolutely.
Tiffany Hansen: I found it inspiring because these were not people of means.
Jerry Saltz: No, a postman and a teacher, I think.
Tiffany Hansen: I think it's a great documentary, by the way, listeners, if you're interested in that. I think it's Herb and Dorothy.
Jerry Saltz: Herb and Dorothy Vogel.
Tiffany Hansen: That's right. I just wonder what advice you would have for someone now. Now, of course, they were collecting decades ago. Who says, "I don't know where to start if I want to build a little collection for myself. I don't have. I don't have $6.2 million to spend on a banana, so what's the option?"
Jerry Saltz: Well, that's true. Today, art has become very expensive. It's going to be hard to break in as a collector. All I can, I really speak to the art lover, the critic, the curator, art professionals, and people in the audience that want to look at art and hang out and be around cool people. That's my primary focus.
Tiffany Hansen: All right, speaking of being around cool people, we have a texter here who says, "I have a note about going to openings and looking. Go to the openings to talk to people, talk to the artist, et cetera. Then go on another day and go back when only a few other people are there and really look at the work. Two totally different experiences." What do you think, Jerry?
Jerry Saltz: Really good point. It is fun to be at openings, especially in our time.
Tiffany Hansen: It's like a party.
Jerry Saltz: It's like a party. Especially now, when leaving your apartment is a drag. No one wants to go out. I love when I get a cancellation.
Tiffany Hansen: A cancel?
Jerry Saltz: It's the best thing, but now I want you to go out. They're 6:00 to 8:00; that's their hours. Get there around 10:00 to 7:00. Go around the five or six galleries, follow the crowd, and I know you're going to feel out of place and like a loser, because you are, but everybody, even I am standing around going, "I'm such a loser. Nobody. I can't," and you just have to stand there until somebody speaks to you, and if no one speaks to you, you can speak earnestly to someone else.
Don't be a jerk. Just try to start a conversation and keep doing that; you're going to have a ball. The art world is a bunch of shamans, smelly shamans who live on the edge of the village, the global village, and everybody in it has a deficit that they're trying to make up for, which is impossible, and oddly enough, artists are making useless items called art that they somehow convince the rest of us we really need, and the weird thing is, we really do need it.
Tiffany Hansen: We're talking with Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Jerry Saltz. Jerry's the senior art critic at New York Magazine, and we're talking about art appreciation. Listeners, we, of course, would want you in this conversation as well. 212-433-9692. We'll get back to your calls in just a minute. We're going to take a quick break. This is Please Advise on WNYC. I'm Tiffany Hansen. Stick around.
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Tiffany Hansen: Welcome back to Please Advise, the pop-up advice show here on WNYC. I'm Tiffany Hansen. We're talking this hour with Jerry Saltz. Jerry is a senior art critic at New York Magazine. We're talking about art appreciation. We were just talking about gallery openings. Jerry, here's somebody who's talking about open studios. "Yes, go to an artist's open studios," this texter says. "Different neighborhoods have them as weekend events, like Gowanus Open Studios. You'll see artists in their habitats. You'll see art and support that ecosystem." You're doing two things, I suppose, to your point earlier about supporting artists as well. Thoughts, more thoughts on open studios?
Jerry Saltz: I used to go to them, and I have discovered artists who are in play today at them, so I think it's super fun. It's something to do. You're going to meet people. It's fun. Just find out. Be open. Follow your bad taste wherever it leads you. You have to understand that every work of art, it's like it sees you looking at it from across the room, and it goes, "I saw you looking at me. I saw you out of the corner of your eye notice me. Come closer. Come closer." You get closer, and it goes, "You love me. You want to take me home. You want to put me in your bedroom." It's flirting with you; it's speaking to you, and that can happen with the artist or the work of art, so just stay open. Be as feral as you can be.
Tiffany Hansen: All right. Let's talk with Ellen in Tarrytown. Hi, Ellen.
Ellen: Hi. Can you hear me?
Tiffany Hansen: Sure can.
Ellen: Okay. I just wanted to say that when we go to museums, and we go to a lot of museums all over the place, we really try to talk to the guards because the guards are people who most people ignore and walk by, but they are there every day. They look at that art, and they know a lot that you would be surprised to learn, and their point of view is not as an intellectual or as a docent, but as someone who's there not just for a job, in fact. Actually, many of them just love the art; not just; they love the art, and they have a job, and they get to see it all the time.
Tiffany Hansen: You're just asking. You ask their opinion, Ellen?
Ellen: Yes, I asked them their opinion. I asked them a lot about information. "Can you tell me anything you know about this piece or where these pieces are or anything you know about it?" I've had that experience in art in European museums, in New York, and they love to be asked.
Jerry Saltz: I do that, too, Ellen. Ellen is 100% right. They're art lovers, by and large, and you can just say anything you want. You can ask them questions. They know where everything is, where the closest bathroom is, so I would say go for it.
Tiffany Hansen: Really?
Jerry Saltz: Yes. Even if you're lonely, just talk to them.
Tiffany Hansen: They always look sort of menacing to me.
Jerry Saltz: Well, don't talk to them.
Tiffany Hansen: Okay. All right. On that note, let's talk instead with Brian in the Bronx. Hi, Brian.
Brian: Hi, guys. Great show. I was growing up near the Met Museum, and I got separated from my kind of rowdy friends. I was about 13 years old, and I happened upon Jackson Pollock's Autumn Rhythm. This is a gigantic canvas, and I was just captured by it. I knew nothing about art. I had no education, but this painting captured me, and it made me an art lover. Thanks for the show.
Tiffany Hansen: Oh, great story, Brian. Thank you for calling. We appreciate it.
Jerry Saltz: Thank you for that. I'd like everyone to remember: what was your first? What work of art was the first work of art, Tiffany, that you went, "Bam," and it reached you?
Tiffany Hansen: It was Van Gogh's Sunflowers.
Jerry Saltz: Where was it? Where did you see it?
Tiffany Hansen: I saw it at the Musée. Did I see it at the Musée d'Orsay? I don't remember where in Paris I saw it, but what I remarked about it immediately was the thickness of his brushstrokes and the way the paint seemed to just be clinging for dear life to the canvas. What I liked about it is I could imagine him making that brushstroke, and I felt a connection.
Jerry Saltz: That's beautiful. Every work of art you stand in front of, you're standing exactly where the artist stood while they were making it, and you had an especially tactile connection. That's beautiful.
Tiffany Hansen: Thank you. Wait, I should ask you. How about you?
Jerry Saltz: Mine's kind of complicated.
Tiffany Hansen: Oh, all right.
Jerry Saltz: I don't think we should get into it.
Tiffany Hansen: All right. Instead.
Jerry Saltz: It was at the Art Institute of Chicago when I was 10 years old.
Tiffany Hansen: Great, though. Great museum, though.
Jerry Saltz: Yes, deeply.
Tiffany Hansen: Yes. Carol in Manhattan. Hi, Carol. Welcome to Please Advise.
Carol: Hi. Hi. You can hear me, I'm assuming, yes?
Tiffany Hansen: We can.
Jerry Saltz: Yes.
Carol: Okay. Thank you so much for this show. I think it's a great idea to bring it out to the public. I would like your opinion on how the language is that curators use when they post next to a painting. I'm a working artist myself, and I feel like sometimes they are giving you information that is really their idea and doesn't allow you to have your own experience because that information is already in your head.
Tiffany Hansen: Yes.
Carol: I think putting it in context is great. There's some basic information that'd really help, like where this painting was made, but I do feel that it does interrupt my experience.
Jerry Saltz: I think that's really an interesting point. I assume you're referring to the wall labels.
Tiffany Hansen: Yes. Right?
Carol: Yes.
Jerry Saltz: Okay. A lot of them are horribly written in a language of gobbledygook jargon. When I hit one of those, which is most of them, I recommend going to the second-to-last sentence and read the last two sentences. Generally, you'll find out what the artist thinks they might be doing. I think that your point is well taken, that this is something that needs to be reconsidered, and it is being reconsidered in museums, especially right now; in galleries, it doesn't exist at all, so you're good.
Tiffany Hansen: We have another suggestion here from a texter who says, "Newburgh OPEN Studios are this weekend. Make a great excuse to visit the Lower Hudson Valley." Another Hudson Valley shout-out.
Jerry Saltz: Boom.
Tiffany Hansen: Okay, Jerry, I have taken all of this to heart, and I'm going to go out somewhere this weekend. Where should I go?
Jerry Saltz: I would say go to Chelsea. You go to three or four streets in Chelsea between 19th Street and, say, 24th. That's six blocks or something. You go between 10th and 11th Avenue. Just cruise any one or two of those streets. The galleries are large; they're open, they're ground floor. You will see the art that is in play; it might be not to your liking; it might be. Go to--
Tiffany Hansen: That means people are talking about it.
Jerry Saltz: Yes. Go to 19th Street to see David Zwirner Gallery. Go to 20th Street to those galleries of Jack Shainman. Go to 22nd Street. There's galleries all over, and say hi to me. I'm walking around just as lonely as you are.
Tiffany Hansen: Look for Jerry.
Jerry Saltz: Yes.
Tiffany Hansen: All right. We've been talking with Jerry Saltz. He is the senior art critic at New York Magazine and a Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic. Callers, everyone that called, thank you so much. We couldn't get to everybody. We couldn't get to all your texts, but we absolutely appreciate it, and, Jerry, we really appreciate you coming in as well. Thank you.
Jerry Saltz: I had a ball.
Tiffany Hansen: Excellent. Now listen, coming up on Monday here on Please Advise, someone else is sliding into this chair. The host of NPR's It's Been a Minute, Brittany Luse, will be in the chair Monday through Wednesday next week. Brittany is digging in on relationship issues, starting with romantic relationships and dating. She'll be joined on Monday by JP Brammer. You might recognize that name as someone who is the advice columnist behind ¡Hola Papi!.
If you need some advice on romance and dating, you can head right now to wnyc.org/advice. You can tell us about that. Do you need help starting a difficult conversation? Maybe you've got a deal breaker you're up against here. Wnyc.org/advice, and you can tune in on Monday to hear Brittany Luce here on Please Advise. I'm Tiffany Hansen. So glad to have spent these last couple of weeks with you. Have a great weekend, Jerry.
Jerry Saltz: You, too, Tiffany.
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