Jerry Saltz on the Contemporary Art World: The Good, The Bad and The Very Bad 

He says that art always needs to be new, always needs to challenging something, always needs to be asking questions. But at the same time "If you don't like the art world you can leave." Really indicative of the contemporary art world's obsession with rebelling against the establishment despite BEING the establishment.

Such a nice, funny, lightweight talk on the contemporary art world, love Jerry!

Love you Jerry. You made me going from "let's see what this man has to say " to "I would really enjoy to listen to Jerry for hours and days and years".

My new favorite person, Totally brilliant. Wonderful intellect and passion for art. Love this guy.

Love this. What a great presentation.

Wow such an incredible talk and person!! I finished the Norwegian art academy and I never heard of him:( and we were encouraged to do all the things Jerry says not to do in painting. Incredible. I always felt like he is saying now. Happy to finally see that I was not crazy then. Especially brilliant moment about the labels. Thank you 🙏

This is the first time I've seen Jerry come to life in this way. I would have paid to see him for 3 hours.

Love you Jerry, even that I do not know you and first time I've listened to you! thanks..

The best thing about art critics is how they struggle to define how something is good or bad based on nothing. Hey Jerry, I remember that terrible TV show.

When he said he didn't like or understand Talking Heads, I felt I knew all I needed to about him. Brian Eno and David Byrne made the definitive album that one could say musically captures the essence of contemporary art, _My Life in the Bush of Ghosts_ . Anyone who hasn't heard it should, especially those who enjoy contemporary art.

He keeps going on and on..

He really likes to hear himself talk. Irritating.

WHAT IS ART...WHY WE ARE DOING ART.......I DO LOVE THE SUBJECT THAT MAKES ME MORE TO LEARN ABOUT ART.......Many thanks.

Love it! I could listen to your thoughts 3hrs!

Brilliant!

Great talk! Thank you!

More than art, he personally has become a star.

Awesome!!

Stunning & brilliant

Super cool talk... hola from Costa Rica

Love this.

Yeah people lean on the subject matter... Look forward to reading the Wilde essays. Doing 'what is helpless and unavoidable' a lovely way of characterizing what is so much oneself. Here's to healing pain and casting spells... whatever spells they may be.

The subject matter and context matters!

Finally a real contemporary! ((-, Having a blast with someone who speaks truth. Thanks for that!

I'm a truck driver doing self taught art when I can. Thanks for the tips. following.

Musical reference wrong. Not the Sex Pistols. The Velvet Underground. Their album only sold x number of copies, but all those people started bands.

I left the art world 10 years ago. It's been bliss.

thnx

More or less, less is more, should I just do it or should I just say no, knowing when to say when time and time again. What do you think. Do you think?

16:54 Jerry does an Epic Record Scratch sound effect with only his mouth!

So,.....art is good if Jerry says so. A gathering where non artist tell each other they are artists.

very good bgm

My Boi Jerry!!!

Which artist sculpted that ladies new face?

🖤

Jerry Saltz said art is not something you can understand; yet he is struggling to understand att. I hear frustration and even anger in his voice.

Art critics are not visual artists. So they are not the best in assessing art works. Often they are the worst of all, for judging art.

Would have ben nice had he gone into the technical aspects of art appreciation.

The first speaker on the subject of art that i found not to be boring and full of himself. Thank you very much!

"If you don't like the art world, you can leave" What is the art world??? What does 'leave' mean here? Does this comment apply to art critics? I feel sorry for the audience stuck there, captive.

Fuck I love this guy

He's prodding his audience to come up with his version of Bacon's Pope painting, to pin down and convince them of his interpretation. Then, almost without taking a breath he goes into Wallace Steven's rehash of Heraclitus stepping into the river, only using the bridge instead as a metaphor. That deals with the truth about the primacy of INDIVIDUAL perception . So that sounded a lot like a contradiction. He has some great ideas but I wish he'd put as much attention into consistency as he does into performance. That's some ego up there on stage. 7/10

never got into Jasper Johns

this is precisely the kind of pretentious crap that artists hate...

“don’t talk, I can’t hear myself see”…. , turns down the car radio to see where I’m driving 😂💦

I think you need to look at the artist Lori Wakefield

I can't stand that all the talk is like a big show as if I am a kid or a person with problems of attention.

The Chinese used flattened perspective in their landscapes and isometric perspective in their interiors. It's a really dubious argument to say that linear perspective 'had to go' though. Complete bollocks actually.

He talked about BLM.He said that we need a social evolution in this country. I hope that they show up at his place !!!!!!!!!!!!!

It 's enough to see you making the clown , to understand that you are not serious about art. Specialy nowdays when art sales are a matter of mafia , that is very serious problem .

Ms Rosen is on her 68th 'adjustment' and 7th husband.

Cocaine's a hell of a drug..

That quotation in the beginning was absolute BS.

"its a little shiny"... that might be blamed on conservators overglazing .... but yes, a little brown

I assume he didn't get the Pulitzer Prize for his standup routine.

Saltz isn't making a point about art as much as he is self-promoting. This is embarrassing. He completely dances around what art does for people. Probably because he doesn't actually know. He only suggests that he knows. And he's a shill for the contemporary art world - and not the best part of it. Can he name the four primary functions of art and any of their sub-functions? - like creating feelings of plenty or a sense of awe (my favourite) and why and how art does this and for what reasons? No. He can't. How about other dozens of functions of art? How about a description of how the perennial functions of art differ from contemporary functions of art? One of the primary functions of contemporary art is to allow people with no talent to declare themselves artists. This is greatly beneficial if you believe in total egalitarianism and not in talent. How does contemporary art act as a litmus test to divide classes (from rich and poor, from educated and not)? How does contemporary art work as propaganda for the wealthy and the powerful? To ensure that artists don't criticize those in power? (Think of China and the red line.) Why did the CIA find so much success using modern art as a political weapon against the Soviets? Understand the functions and you understand better the history of art. And you'll really see how powerful art is and how important it is to society. And you'll see how silly Mr. Saltz is when he talks about art.

10 25

I really dig his rhetoric, and enjoy listening to him speak, but I think it would do a great service for him to dumb down the way he talks, just a bit. Trying to figure out modern art is hard. He lost me a couple times during that presentation just by using some pretty out-there terminology. But I guess that's also what I love about him.

....he's just a comedian...

At 36.00mins,you ask, 'What is Art 'for' ?' The answer in one word is 'nothing'.

I'd recommend daily brushing with toothpaste and a tooth brush. Other than that, a regular guy with lots of experience.

Wow. She's a sculptor.Her FACE!

This presentation was a good topic, but presented exactly like Contemporary art style. This guy is annoying to say at least

I'm 9 min into this and he does not convince me as to what art is all about.

All over the place, but not in a good way, I found. Honestly, what did that rambling have to do with the title of the video, much less anything? An art world word salad with so much abstraction, holes and dodging, I don't know what the fuck he was actually, really saying!? "You're a soldier, do what you can't avoid, who understands that stuff but it makes you cry, chipping away at something to make a pointy thing, the artist has to be able to embed thought into material, those clouds are not in Ferguson Missouri, etc." What were the "deep thoughts" Jack Handy?

Jerry likes to portray himself at every opportunity as a anti establishment figure. A former truck driver with no education, but a champion of Artists. After following him on Instagram I found him to be quite different than he appears. I thought his comment section was a place to discuss Art, and theories about Art. However if you engage with him to discuss Art he lashes out at you in what can only be described as a petty vindictive tirade. Out of the blue unprovoked He said I will go to my grave never having made a real work of Art. Yes this is the real Jerry Saltz don't be fooled by his phony persona.

I'm sorry, but after investing 20 years in sporadic painting, because I Love it, I have been thoroughly discouraged by this particular talk. I don't know why, but after clicking out of interest, I honestly feel like I should never bother painting again. I hope I will feel differently - tomorrow is another day, after all. 😢. Wtf in what this clearly lovely man is saying is so off putting? I don't know, but it is.

I can't handle too much ego

Jerry Saltz I'm Trying to Call you before my New York Show ( Edit to show this is real )

I listen and say to myself 'oh he sounds important'...I better pay attention....Such an old tape for me...authorities know best...same with 'famous' painters. Recently am giving away 'authority' books and 'how-to' articles' as I try to simply (never easy) approach a canvas and make the marks that are 'me'. big challenge...not much of me and lots of 'them'. ok there's my 'sharing'...sigh....I'm 83 'if not now,when' ps my 'mature' brain' understands nothing this man says.

good talk, glad he's not got an art degree.

what is he talking about.... sounds like a bunch of rambling to me. never actually answers anything

Amusing babble, up to a point....then: borink!

Sounds like the presenter took a lesson or to on how to present stuff from George Carlin, which is certainly good for keeping attention up. There's one thing that bothers me about art galleries... Where's the digital art? Why is the art gallery still just blank white boring room, when we have VR, when we know how to make rooms into entire sets... How you can actually turn the museum itself into an art work... We live in an age where stationary art isn't grabbing much attention anymore... the design world can tell you rather well where eyes tend to move... And they are fixed on screens, commercials, movies, games and elsewhere. I think museums needs an upgrade... They don't really portray the magnitude of modern art... Contemporary art is ignoring digital and technological art rather bluntly. The spirit of this age, is the spirit of technology, of advancement... Sadly though, also of hyper consumerism, and this odd phenomena where the general society isn't keeping up with just how quickly our abilities grow... Everything is accessible, yet, no one really knows in which direction to go... People are becoming aware to the highest degree of each other, yet, they lose sight quickly over what needs to be protected or condoned... People question authority, yet, they also take these questions to a point of endangering themselves, because they can't trust anything at all anymore, even though there's enough research to counter their worries, but, they'd rather learn the hard way, rather than to use the gathered data... Mostly due to their distrust of it. Everything is close, everything is massive... We grow at an insane rate, and no one knows their place anymore... A modern museum is like a modern school... Still stuck somewhere in time, still lack the proper augmentation to bring it to where it's suppose to be. You don't need people to bring blank papers and try and deliver some meaning through the paper next to it describing the concept... You can express everything very vividly in the digital world... Even without the digital world, you can have machines with real animations, moving parts... Our world isn't stationary anymore, and the attention span is getting thinner and thinner... And as this video clearly shows, the young generation speaks faster and faster... Because everyone are hyper this day and age, the world barely keeps up with itself. All art speaks of it's age... In criticism, in reverence or in a personal story through it, or perhaps, in reflection of either the past of the future. Indeed, the importance of art is crucial for our advancement, for our understanding of each other... Let alone, of simple navigation. The design world on it's own is practical art... And it's everywhere. The contemporary art likes to make people question things... To rebel against something, and to attempt to show as much criticism as possible towards things... Dismember rules, establishments, concepts... Even the "show don't tell" part goes to oblivion, just for the sake of trying to convey an expression. I think that this expression ends up not really representing the full scope of our age... It only brings one side of it, and that side, in all honesty, starts to get boring... When you break everything, you end up with broken pieces that even though each fraction is completely unique, they all display a shattered image equally. And it repeats itself... Too much.

This guy's just wasting our time. Move on nothing to see, or learn here. Bye !

Ha ha ha...

So called Contemporary Art is a sect, a cult. This character is doing exactly the same as cult officer recruiting new believers into the 3 inner circles. Almost step by step. How people can't realise that. The only difference is there is not one cult leader but many. And the entire sect doesn't count more then 4-5 000 souls around the globe, promoters,"artists" and buyers included. And most of them, according to their position in the power&wealth pyramid are as rich. Filthy rich. And like all cults it's all about money. Don't be naive to think it's about "art, talent and self expression". To join the high(est) rank you have to pay baby. In money or service or whatever. Once you are in you can never get out. Poor Polock, for instance, didn't realise it and died in poverty.

Contemporary presenter with contemporary audience where nobody understands anything.

Great artists were always skilled by nature. He talks non sense.

Terrible. Poor delivery of rambling thoughts.

Half-dead audience.

woke is broke art

He is very narrowly focused on socio-political art. He misses the boat on beauty. Too narrow.