Jerry Saltz facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Jerry Saltz
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| Born | February 19, 1951 Oak Park, Illinois, U.S. |
| Occupation | Journalist, Author, Art critic |
| Education | School of the Art Institute of Chicago |
| Period | 1990s–present |
| Notable works | Seeing Out Loud: The Village Voice Art Columns, 1998–2003 Seeing Out Louder |
| Notable awards | Pulitzer Prize for Criticism (2018) |
| Spouse |
Roberta Smith
(m. 1992) |
Jerry Saltz (born February 19, 1951, in Chicago, Illinois) is an American art critic. Since 2006, he has been senior art critic and columnist for New York magazine. Formerly the senior art critic for The Village Voice, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2018 and was nominated for the award in 2001 and 2006. Saltz served as a visiting critic at School of Visual Arts, Columbia University, Yale University, and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the New York Studio Residency Program, and was the sole advisor for the 1995 Whitney Biennial.
Saltz is the recipient of three honorary doctorates, including from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008 and Kansas City Art Institute in 2011.
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Early life and education
Saltz was born in Oak Park, before moving to River Forest, Illinois. His mother died when he was ten years old. Shortly after he recalls a memorable trip to the Art Institute of Chicago, where he discovered, "Everything here is telling a story, everything here has a code, has a language—and I’m going to learn this whole language and I’m going to know the story."
Saltz moved to the inner city and attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1970 to 1975 before dropping out.
Career
Saltz worked briefly at Jan Cicero Gallery before co-founding, with Barry Holden and artists from the Art Institute of Chicago, N.A.M.E. Gallery, an artist-run gallery. Saltz moved to New York City in 1980.
Dialogue with readers through Facebook
Saltz uses Facebook more actively than many other art critics, posting daily questions and diatribes to his audience of friends, which numbered 94,039 people in December 2020. He has stated that he wants to demystify the art critic to artists and a general art audience. His posts are less polished and restrained than his writing for New York Magazine and vulture.com, and he has shared personal matters including family tragedies, career bumps and his diet. He told the New York Observer, "It's exciting to be in this room with 5,000 people. It's like the Cedar Bar for me, or Max's Kansas City."
He has used his page to defend the use of irony in art, arguing against adherents of "the New Seriousness", whom he calls the "Purity Police".
- Some Facebook-related Jerry Saltz activity
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Saltz and Bill Clinton pose at an art gallery exhibit opening—side view of the scene long used as the user-avatar on Saltz's official Facebook page
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At the public opening reception of an art exhibit at a gallery in New York City, Saltz (center) is flanked by wife Roberta Smith and artist and Facebook friend Terry Ward.
In 2010, artist Jennifer Dalton exhibited an artwork called "What Are We Not Shutting Up About?" at the FLAG Foundation in New York that statistically analyzed five months of Facebook conversations between Saltz and his online friends. In an interview with Artinfo, Dalton said of the work, “I became interested in Jerry Saltz's Facebook page as an amazing site of written dialogue and as a place where culture is being created on the spot. I think my piece, and Jerry Saltz's Facebook page itself, tells us that a lot of people in the art world crave dialogue and community, and when a space is welcoming enough people really flock to it.”
In 2010, Saltz asked his Facebook friends about art studio (or office) door signs—and then later sought someone to compile the replies. The result was a book featuring Saltz and dozens of his page's followers' quotes: JERRY SALTZ ART CRITIC's Fans, Friends, & The Tribes Suggested ART STUDIO DOOR SIGNS of Real Life or Fantasy.
In 2015, Saltz was briefly suspended from Facebook after the site received complaints from users about provocative posts.
Art critic as television personality
Saltz served as a judge in the Bravo television series Work of Art: The Next Great Artist which ran from June 9, 2010, to December 21, 2011.
Publications
- Saltz, Jerry. Seeing Out Loud: The Village Voice Art Columns, 1998–2003. Gt Barrington: The Figures, 2003; reprinted 2007; 410 pp. (paperback), ISBN: 978-1-930589-17-9.
- Saltz, Jerry. Seeing Out Louder. Hudson Hills Press LLC, 2009; 420 pp. (hardcover), ISBN: 978-1-55595-318-8.
- Saltz, Jerry. Beyond Boundaries: New York's New Art. 1986; 128 pp. ISBN: 978-0-912383-31-6
- Saltz, Jerry. How to Be an Artist. 2020; 144 pp. ISBN: 9780593086469
- Saltz, Jerry. Art is Life. Penguin Random House, 2022; 354 pp. ISBN 978-0593086490
Awards
Saltz received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2018 and was nominated for the award in 2001 and 2006.
Saltz is the recipient of three honorary doctorates, including from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008 and Kansas City Art Institute in 2011.
Personal life
Saltz lives in New York City with his wife Roberta Smith, co-chief art critic for the New York Times. They were married in 1992. Saltz is Jewish.
