I’d read anything by Jerry Saltz, even a treatise on phone books or bowling balls.
Saltz is the senior art critic at New York magazine, the winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, and an incredibly florid writer (picture the palest of cheeks growing hot and red; this is what his powers do for any subject). He writes about art in a flush of wordy enthusiasm, never a fraidy-cat with language or opinion.
Memorably, he once called Jeff Koons an “idiot savant” and has described Robert Andy Coombs’ work as an “orchidology of sexual desire.” He may be notoriously obnoxious on Twitter and Instagram, but his 2015 article The Most Powerful Artwork I Have Ever Seen is the one I reread when my own faith in art starts to falter.
Jerry Saltz (photo by Celeste Sloman)
His new book, How to be an Artist, an extrapolation of a 2018 article on the same theme, was released by Riverhead Books last March. Unfortunate timing, perhaps, as pandemic anxiety was throwing human creativity into chaos. Few were settled enough to sit and read. But readers may benefit now from the kick-start-my-heart character of this book: It’s a strange mix of erudite conversation and varsity cheerleading.
“Vivisect yourself,” he instructs in the section titled Art is a Flatworm, and then later, “Think about the voices in your private psychic pantheon.”
In his section on surviving the art world, he reminds us to wait for the thermal updrafts that flow through fear and doubt. Thermal updrafts! Yes! I think I feel the warmth!
Pages from "How to be an Artist" by Jerry Saltz.
Fervour aside, the book is too short. The sections are quip-filled and truncated, as if written for gnat-sized attention spans. True, it’s aimed at beginners – he sometimes suggests art-schoolish exercises – but anyone who already knows art will long for Saltz to string it out a little.
It’s a shame, because his ideas about how artists acknowledge or ignore the four borders of the canvas – he names Picasso, Matisse and American artist Brice Marsden – and his thoughts on how art shapes our collective vision, are pliable enough for long and luxurious essays.
Pages from "How to be an Artist" by Jerry Saltz.
There’s another book – a classic – that may be better at helping people become artists: Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, by David Bayles and Ted Orland, which sounds saner and delves deeper. But no one describes art like Saltz. His is a full-blown love affair. ■
How to be an Artist by Jerry Saltz. Riverhead Books, 2020.
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