Art Is Life: Icons and Iconoclasts, Visionaries and Vigilantes, and Flashes of Hope in the Night

by Jerry Saltz

From the Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author of How to Be an Artist: a deliciously readable survey of the art world in turbulent times

Jerry Saltz is one of our most-watched writers about art and artists, and a passionate champion of the importance of art in our shared cultural life. Since the 1990s he has been an indispensable cultural voice: witty and provocative, he has attracted contemporary readers to fine art as few critics have. An early champion of forgotten and overlooked women artists, he has also celebrated the pioneering work of African American, LGBTQ+, and other long-marginalized creators. Sotheby’s Institute of Art has called him, simply, “the art critic.”

Now, in Art Is Life, Jerry Saltz draws on two decades of work to offer a real-time survey of contemporary art as a barometer of our times. Chronicling a period punctuated by dramatic turning points—from the cultural reset of 9/11 to the rolling social crises of today—Saltz traces how visionary artists have both documented and challenged the culture. Art Is Life offers Saltz’s eye-opening appraisals of trailblazers like Kara Walker, David Wojnarowicz, Hilma af Klint, and Jasper Johns; provocateurs like Jeff Koons, Richard Prince, and Marina Abramović; and visionaries like Jackson Pollock, Bill Traylor, and Willem de Kooning. Saltz celebrates landmarks like the Obama portraits by Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, writes searchingly about disturbing moments such as the Ankara gallery assassination, and offers surprising takes on figures from Thomas Kinkade to Kim Kardashian. And he shares stories of his own haunted childhood, his time as a “failed artist,” and his epiphanies upon beholding work by Botticelli, Delacroix, and the cave painters of Niaux.

With his signature blend of candor and conviction, Jerry Saltz argues in Art Is Life for the importance of the fearless artist—reminding us that art is a kind of channeled voice of human experience, a necessary window onto our times. The result is an openhearted and irresistibly readable appraisal by one of our most important cultural observers.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Essays, History, Art History, Audiobook, Cultural

368 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2022

Reviews

[Left Coast Justin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I expected to like this. The author's Pulitzer Prize credentials are plastered on the front cover, as is the self-aggrandizing title, which might have warned me away.

Here we find a collection of weekly columns from The Village Voice, mostly, written over a twenty-year span. Roughly half are about artists and their work, and the other half about the art world. These latter I could have done without. Saltz proves himself lodged firmly in the "cranky critic" camp, and his worldview doesn't really evolve over twenty years -- too much money is ruining art, and the sorts of people who have the money don't have artistic souls but are just purchasing these things as investments. It's a good point, but I don't need to read the same argument for 170 pages.

His focus was on living artists, and as I'm not au courant on that world, I did learn about several artists I'd not heard of before. I read this with my laptop open next to me, so I could look up the paintings and sculptures he was describing. While I'm grateful for the exposure, by and large his tastes and mine are a mismatch. Alice Neel, Nan Goldin, Carroll Dunham, Robert Gober, Chris Burden and others....I didn't see what Saltz saw. (I acknowledge that many artworks look far better in real life than reproduced on a computer screen.)

On the positive side, Laurel Nakodate, Lisa Yuskavage and Dorothea Tanning's work, while perhaps not something I'd cross the country to go see, was at least interesting. And I deeply appreciate that a column titled "The Most Powerful Artwork I Have Ever Seen" described a visit to a cave in France in which people painted wild animals between 17,000 and 11,000 years ago:



He also introduced me to Kerry James Marshall, who at age 25 created a painting called "A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of his Former Self." This introduction was the shortest essay in the book, a single paragraph. The charitable interpretation is that the artwork speaks for itself and having a gasbag like Jerry Saltz blathering away does not enhance the experience of seeing this painting. Unusually concise, he concludes:

Small, spectral, cartoonish, smoky, frightening, an uncomfortably racial self-caricature, it reverberates with a power reminiscent of Ralph Ellison's horrific line: "I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me."

There's a great quote in here from Joan Didion on Thomas Kinkaid, and he also covered the creepy repulsive work of Eric Fischl, which somehow I have long been drawn to. So thanks for that. We also find longer essays about better-known artists, though most of the longer ones are just him railing about the false values of the art world. Of the three longest, one was about Andy Warhol, and I was surprised that I learned almost nothing, given my own disinterest in Warhol; but I'd heard all this before. The other two, opening and closing the book, were devoted to Jerry Saltz.

[CatReader · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at 59%. This book isn't a standalone work as much as a collection of essays and articles written over the last few decades by the author, art critic Jerry Saltz, with a fair amount of overlap between various essays that becomes tedious when read in sequence. The biggest flaw of this work, in my opinion, is Saltz' pervasive biases (political, highbrow) that prevents him from objectively viewing and critiquing art. He extols objectively lewd pieces of art as mold-breaking and intelligent while skewering other works simply because the artist doesn't share his political viewpoints (Bush) or panders too much to the masses (Kincaid). Yet it's clear he was deeply hurt by his own artistic career flopping decades ago, which seemed largely his own doing, rather than the result of vitriolic art critics tearing him down like he has been doing to others for deacdes. The further I read, the more I became convinced that Saltz is a deeply angry, unhappy man using his bully pulpit to further his own worldview.

[Antonia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hated it.
Wanted to love it. Could be valuable insight? Eventually? Maybe? If I go to a very pretentious dinner party with a bunch of people I wouldn’t want to talk about art with.
Am I missing something? Am I the problem? Felt pretentious and just ugh yawn.

[Ashleigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

An endlessly enjoyable and informative collection. Although I do disagree with some points Saltz makes, I enjoyed every essay.

It also features one of my favorite sentences ever written, “the wildly successful merchant of American sentimentalism, Thomas Kinkade, shared mindspace with the destructive gremlin on the wing of America, George W. Bush, whose deeply squirrelly paintings…were somehow both fascinating and vacant” (13). Amazing.

[JC Pham · Rating 4 out of 5]

To those in the art world, Jerry Saltz is a household name - his work has won him the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, and as senior art critic for the New York Magazine, Saltz has a voice and opinion which greatly influences both artists and the masses. If we are to truly examine his work, we must forget the television appearances, his three honorary doctorates, and the lifetime he has dedicated to art. However, even if you push these statistics to the back of your mind, the end product is clear; this is the work of an art critic doing what he does best, criticizing art. In addition to breaking down the intricacies of modern art and the artists behind the pieces, he meditates upon the recent history of art, and the direction of its future. The book is multifaceted, and the strongest part of the work is Saltz’s conversational prose. His personal essays, detailing his arduous journey into becoming the eminent critic he is today, are illuminating and told in an honest, open style. Art is Life is one of the most comprehensive books on modern art, leading up to 2021, and detailing the shutdown of galleries during the pandemic. This book is directed at those who have an interest in the art world, but will be equally entertaining and informative for anyone who wants to learn about the madness, genius, and human heart of those who create art.

[Sara Fabião · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5

[Zara Chauvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible. Funny, honest, educational. Unpretentious and generally accessible, although I’d love to read again (and again?) with more context and knowledge of the artists and movements he speaks about. A love letter to artists, a scathing look at the art world.

“I believe that every artist means everything they’re doing. That no one is making art just to make money or pull the wool over peoples eyes. All artists may want to make money and be loved, but at base they’re still serious about their art. That’s why I hate the cynicism of the art world. All the money and glamour can make it hard to see, and sometimes even harder to believe, that artists mean everything they do as powerfully as anything they’ve ever meant in their entire lives.”

[…]

“Never deny the sources of your pleasure, always honour your eye, follow your taste. Love will find a way.”

[…]

“It’s the same as each generation thinking it has invented sex. Newness is as old as time, the modernists were just a lot cockier about saying so.”

[Rosalind · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable writing full of pizzaz. Good to keep Google handy to check on some of the artists he writes about. The short dated entries, originally published in New York Magazine, make it great for just picking up whenever, though they are sometimes repetitive. I liked reading about his impressions and personal experiences regarding what was happening beyond the galleries and museums, like the AIDS epidemic, 9/11, or COVID. Best for me are the entries that are personal; giving us what is a highly unusual back story for an art writer or critic and the story of his relationship with his wife Roberta Smith and her struggle with cancer. While I don't always agree with his opinions regarding certain artists, I am convinced that he truly loves and appreciates art, and understands something of why artists do what they do.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The artist is a sort of Dr. Frankenstein, transmuting the rules of nature and the material world, memory, influence, culture, and tradition, trying to bring something new and unknown to life...The artist loves going down rabbit holes, working toward and against something at the same time, translating sensory and extrasensory impressions that all have their own sovereignty or joy, each of them on a journey to bring something back from a personal underworld, to build a new body out of disparate parts and materials. In this way, art is something like an undoing of death."

4.5 stars. Jerry is great, as usual. Accessible but still historically engaged and critical. A few essays I won't return to - more that I will.

[Marissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of essays from Saltz’s career as an art critic. Some of the pieces were quite short, and I quickly realized that the ones about the business of the art world did not interest me at all. There were a few longer pieces that were especially interesting. I liked reading this on an iPad because I could easily look up the art for a visual reference 😎

[Hesper · Rating 1 out of 5]

Witty enough but immeasurably more insufferable. DNF

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is always such a delight to spend time with Jerry Saltz’s writing.

Saltz does such a wonderful job of making art criticism accessible without dumbing it down intellectually, and I love that he has never deviated from this approach.

If you’re a long time Vulture reader you’ll likely recognize some of the material included, though I found I didn’t mind this at all. Saltz appears to have reworked some of it to make it flow as a cohesive book, and it truly does read like a continuous narrative rather than a collection of old columns.

If you have some background in art I don’t know that you’ll truly learn anything from this in terms of truly new information, but Saltz’s musings and perspective make even revisits to the work of popular Old Masters feel fresh again.

*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

(me, to me: "don't compare it to the other book")

**deep breath**

Ok. I love love love Jerry Salz, I am a HUGE Jerry fan, bla bla bla, and I ADORED How to be an Artist.
Having said that, it pains me to say that, while I'm definitely enjoying this book, I am not as jazzed about it as the last one ("what did we JUST say??").

I think part of it is the format: this book is much more of an anthology of Jerry's writings, as opposed to the last book, which was more thematically unified. That one was the Sgt. Pepper, this one is more like the Red album and Blue albums combined (apologies if you're not a Beatles fan and don't get that analogy, but also, too bad). By no means do I mean to imply that this collection of writings isn't fascinating, eye-opening, funny, and enriching (it is); it's just a LOT.
Fortunately, the plus side of its structure is such that one doesn't need to read it in one sitting, or even in chronological order, for that matter.

There's still so much we can learn from Jerry, even if you don't agree with his very strong opinions. At least he upholds the legacy of the critic actually doing just that: critiquing.

Side note: Jerry narrates part of the audiobook, and another narrator handles much of the rest; while Jerry has made references to his slow, midwestern drawl as hard to listen to, I disagree. I wish he had narrated the whole thing, but even he might agree it's too much for one person (the audiobook is over 14 hours).

[Mia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Art Is Life: Icons and Iconoclasts, Visionaries and Vigilantes, and Flashes of Hope in the Night is a compilation of Saltz’s wonderful writings over several decades. Although they are not expressly political, he they are organized around the political turning points in the US, beginning with the end of the Clinton years and ending with the “The Long American Night” between 2016 and 2021.
There is much to read here ― art criticism, analysis, artist profiles, and confessional ― and every essay is a gem.

[Jeffrey Bumiller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was excellent. This is the kind of book I wish I had purchased instead of getting it from the library. There is so much thought provoking and insightful writing packed into this book. It was a bit like drinking from a hose, I might forget a few points and many of the names mentioned, but what I absorbed was revitalizing and delicious.

[Greg Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous book. Introduced me to so many artists and artworks. Essential to have an electronic device with you when reading so that you can see the artworks and learn form his prose. To top it off the chapter on his background is truly inspirational.

[woolfwoolf · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not finish it. The introductory chapter was captivating, but his reviews on art and artists were dry and unconvincing. Also, essays on the “art world” and the American art market (which quite frankly I couldn’t care less about) were so incredibly boring and superficial. His commentary on the current state of art in the world lacked insight- political, geographical, social- and came across as performative and gimmicky. What I do appreciate is that the language he uses is accessible, I can see why he’s so popular. I also admired his honesty when he spoke about his own failure and flirtations with being an artist, but at the same time it seemed to me, as I moved through the book, that his young, insecure and star-struck self never really left. I’m glad I didn’t purchase this book and borrowed it instead. It’ll be my quickest return thus far.

[Love0 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was knee deep in a toilet cleaning, when this audiobook came to a halt, and I thought 'oh, is that it?'

My life must have completely vortexed in and out between periods of listening...I'm unsure if there was even a periodic structure to the content?

Definitely intresting
Insightful for sure

[C Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was unaware of JERRY SALTZ until I saw many of my artists friends were looking at his Facebook posts. I joined the group and began delving into Jerry’s posts about the art scene.

We learned about Prologue Bookstore when the owner made a presentation at an Aldus Society meeting one evening. Information about this book collectors’ group can be found at their website https://aldussociety.com/about-the-al...  When we visited the store to check it out, I bought ART IS LIFE partly to show support for the bookstore, but also out of curiosity. I’m glad I did, because it is very informative, not academic at all, and surprisingly different from the obtuse art critic articles I used to read in art magazines back before the internet. I rate this book for Goodreads as 4 stars instead of 5 stars because there are no photos of any of the artworks or artists of which he writes about.

Jerry Saltz has been a columnist for NEW YORK magazine since 2007 and was formerly senior art critic for The Village Voice for almost 10 years. He is known as a “critic of the people” per Architectural Digest. Quoted from this book: “He democratizes art for a broad audience through his irreverent column and his social media channels, where he has nearly one million followers.”

In 2018, he won the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism for “My Life as a Failed Artist,” an essay about how his disappointing career as an artist is responsible for his success as a critic. The essay in New York magazine helped sell nearly 400,000 print editions of the magazine and gained over 250,000 readers online, plus helped earn a National Magazine Award for New York magazine. No wonder that the editor of Riverhead Books reached out to him for a book that would expand on that article. I haven’t read that first book, HOW TO BE AN ARTIST, but the first chapter in ART IS LIFE is titled, “My Life as a Failed Artist”, so I assume many of the points from that first book are summarized in this book’s first chapter.

ART IS LIFE has a long subtitle: Icons and Iconoclasts, Visionaries and Vigilantes, and Flashes of Hope in the Night. It’s introduced as a “survey of the art world in turbulent times”, or “in an era of radical change”. To me, this book initially seemed to be a matter of gathering essays he wrote between 2017 and 2022 with editing help from Riverhead Books editor, Calvert Morgan. But the introduction and specially written chapter about his personal life with his wife, Roberta Smith, who was trying to beat uterine cancer during the Covid pandemic (which affectively shut down the art galleries), is very moving, as well as Jerry’s stories about personal exchanges with Jasper Johns and other artists. There is a chapter about his early life growing up in Chicago which sounds like bad news, starting with the suicide of his mother when he was only eight, and continuing with the harrowing adventures of melding with a new step-family when his father remarried.

Jerry is a great writer about life, not just about art. But as the book title says, “ART IS LIFE”.

[Matti · Rating 4 out of 5]

All of the essays all at once were tedious to read but I still really enjoyed this book. It felt accessible and not pretentious at all. Although I will say you will have a better time if you’re familiar with at least some of these artists and their work. This is really just a huge compilation of Jerry’s work as an art critic. So. Some previous knowledge is helpful.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This new book by Pulitzer Prize winning art critic Jerry Saltz, Art is Life, is a delight and a must read for anyone interested in contemporary art. Saltz’s writing is engaging, self-deprecating, funny, sometimes provocative, often intimate, always deeply human. He’s a charming guide to art in the 21st century.

I love art museums, but I’ll admit that I wasn’t familiar with many new artists or trends in the art world. That didn’t matter one bit, because Jerry Saltz took me on a journey through the last two decades of art and beyond. He argues that the art scene has been being completely rewritten since 2001 and his book include accounts of the abrupt paradigm shift after 9/11, the inclusion of a new generation of gay and female artists and artists of color in major exhibits, the rampant commercialization and art speculation before the 2008 recession, Charlie Hebdo, the Obama portraits, Instagram artists and art in response to Trumpism and permacrisis.

Saltz’s enthusiasm for artists he admires is palpable. I loved his essays on Kara Walker (“the best art made about America in this century”), Cindy Sherman, Steve McQueen, Nan Goldin, Louise Bourgeois, and Jasper Johns. I also discovered many new-to-me artists and their works: Andreas Gursky’s giant image of an Amazon warehouse, the provocative “Huck and Jim” sculpture by Charles Ray, the iridescent canvases of neglected Swedish painter Hilma af Klint.

Not all essays are about specific artists or trends. Saltz also writes about gallery visitors, museum spaces, art dealers becoming richer and artists in poverty. He shares stories about his difficult childhood, his failed turn as an artist, becoming a writer at age 39, as well as memorable encounters with arms-dealing art collectors and ancient cave paintings so powerful they almost made him black out. Saltz describes what he sees and feels so vividly we can’t help seeing it too.

If you want to immerse yourself in exciting new (and old) art and outstanding writing, this is a wonderful choice.

Thank you @riverheadbooks for this early copy.

[Izy Carney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes it’s hard to read about art and not feel dumb, but Jerry invites you into this whole world not with absurd descriptions trying to capture the importance of a piece but with stories and feelings that feel accessible to anyone. I am trying to figure out what art means for a society and myself and why I should care about any of it, and I’ve appreciated Jerry’s insights. Thanks, Jerry.

This book is a collection of Jerry’s articles from the past few decades as he does his art critic thing and writes about art in its moment. It spans 1999 to basically today, which is basically as long as I have lived also. It’s fascinating to read how artists and the art world responded to cataclysmic current events and how these shaped art as I know it today. Jerry is a classic (though self aware) liberal and loves talking about Evil Trump and also loves America, which is the only negative thing I have to say about Jerry.

My favorite of his articles were his short biographies of different artists (usually obituaries but somehow still so fun!), and the more autobiographical pieces. He’s got a very interesting life and I love reading about people who find their passions so late in life.

Jerry. This guy.

[Doria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh how I enjoyed this warts-and-all dive into Jerry Saltz’s gnarly views on art! Unfussy yet unbridled, subjective yet open-minded, opinionated yet changeable - what a complex of contrasts, and yet, his is such an inviting way in to the act of seeing art as a mere mortal. Jerry blithely skips through what has proven to be a minefield for other art critics, and why not? He clearly loves looking at art and talking to artists, and relishes being part of the art world.

Like a doting mother he scolds, cajoles, kvells, bewails and practically shrieks his feelings, insights, and revelations. Nor does he hide from his own insatiable eye, subjecting his own past to a most unsentimental scouring. And yet, for all his catastrophizing and finger wagging, this modern day Cassandra may be onto something. Perhaps it’s nothing more than the needfulness that overwhelms some of us when we are in the presence of something that is manifestly more than the sum of its parts. Jerry is just a bit more honest and unfiltered than the rest of us. He’s the art critic we didn’t know we needed, Art’s biggest fan and it’s mouthy pain-in-the-ass. In his own words, “Get back to work, you big babies!”

[Rae Niwa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jerry Saltz is a critic of both excellence and comfort. Though reaching far and wide across the movements of art he covered throughout his career, what remains bold and consistent is his unwavering dedication to commanding us to see the immense sanctuary of art. This collection is a beautiful follow to his first book, “How to be an Artist.” It’s a poignant timeline and evolution of his word, art history, personal antidotes and an ever present notion of feeling. He is both vulnerable, direct and relatable in his tone, as if we are somehow riding his coattails peering into exhibition openings, studio visits and late night writing sessions…in a way that makes the art world more comprehensible, real and alive. He does not stray from the unglamorous or the unsaid, he charters to ever detail, break and question whether in the artwork, the artist, the audience or himself. I’m continually inspired and brought back to life by the simple dexterity of his writings on art.

[Sungyena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Take me back to school, jerry!

“Can art on its own change global warming, stop iran’s president from denying the holocaust, or half the spread of aids, the answer, im afraid, is no. In concert with other things, however, art CAN change the world-incrementally and by osmosis. This is because art is part of a universal force. It has no less purpose or meaning than science, religion, philosophy, politics, or any other discipline, and is as much a form of intelligence or knowing as a first kiss, a last goodbye, or an algebraic equation. Art is an energy source that helps make change possible; it sees things in clusters and constellations rather than rigid systems. It is both a bridge to a new vision and the vision itself, a medium or matrix through which one sees the world. It grants that pleasure is an important form of knowledge. Art is not optional; it is necessary. It is part of the whole ball of wax.”

[Katy Wheatley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Series of outrageously entertaining essays about art by Jerry Saltz, failed artist, indifferent truck driver and self taught art critic who finally found his calling and has become one of the most interesting art critics in recent years. Saltz knocks down so many of the traditions and false gods of the art world. It's not so much that he opens the door for the layman, he smashes a great hole in the gallery wall. He is a friend to artists rather than the business of art and that makes for engaging and sometimes gripping writing about art. I don't always agree with him, but I get the impression he would like that. I started off reading a few chapters a day and ended up reading half the book in one sitting because I really cared about what he was going to write about next, and next. Terrific stuff.

[Lizzie]

Decided to finally let it return to the library after renewing it out 80 times. A really nice way to start my day, or listen to a chapter or 2 while out for a meander. Every chapter is an individual essay. I never saw it in print but I assume the book is HUGE.

Turned me on to so many artists, taught me more about artists I do and don't enjoy (the George Bush article was really...), while working in great critiques. +Chicago pride sincerely someone who is not really from Chicago...

I also really enjoyed essays/asides about gallery and museum politics, especially around marginalized artists. He is NOT afraid to name names, even his own. The essays and artists are VARIED!

Looking forward to finishing in the future! But better to go slow, repeat certain essays, and really learn and enjoy instead of cramming in words about art as hurriedly as possible.

[Rrisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saltz knows American Art, and better than that he loves American Art. The art world and its 20th and 21st century characters are the protagonists of a history that is both faulty and full of the perfection of a pure pursuit (which is always imperfect). This collection of essays is a portrait of art post 2000, and I appreciate the candid, unpretentious and knowledgeable voice of Saltz as he tackles artists as individuals, gallery and museum shows, and a ridiculous art market that has a personality unto itself. Favorite essays included: My Life as a Failed Artist, In Praise of Art Gallery Attendants, Georgia O’Keefe: Out of the Erotic Ghetto, Cindy Sherman: Becoming, Why Have There Been No Great Women Bad-Boy Artists? There Have Been, of Course, What the Hell Was Modernism?

[Kate Kosek · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m a fan of Jerry’s writing/speaking style so this was great to listen to. Unfortunately he didn’t narrate the whole audio book, so the switch in speakers threw me off sometimes and I found myself uninterested at times because I guess his voice is hypnotizing lol. I’m torn between liking and hating how he included a lot of anecdotes about his life/past. Especially towards the end, there was definitely repetition in writing that was in “How to be an artist”. Nevertheless, this was an interesting perspective on (pretty much all Western) contemporary art, with some other more historical movements sprinkled in. Definitely a book for art history and criticism nerds. Not theory heavy, which makes it an enjoyable listen/read.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find much contemporary art criticism a bit nebulous, and was ready to give up on this book of essays. But then Saltz started interspersing the criticism with his own life story, and it got a lot more interesting. He didn't start writing until he was 40, having dropped out of college and driven a truck for 15 years. However, he had been interested in art from a very young age, and once he started writing he quickly immersed himself in the NYC art world. I appreciated his acidic take on the current art market with its name brand artists cranking out product for the billionaires chasing the latest thing.