TBF Podcast: Jerry Saltz

Jerry Saltz debates Josh Baer about the value of art, why auction houses are ”a pox,” and how the art world got to be ”the f***ing mess that it is,” in this candid conversation between a Pulitzer-prize winning art critic and a veteran art advisor.
Jerry also tells about the winding career path that led to his longtime post as art critic for New York Magazine, from struggling to face his inner demons as an artist, to self-exile as a truck driver, to teaching himself to write and landing his first art critic gig at the Village Voice.
Listen as the two old friends challenge each other’s viewpoints and share stories from their golden days coming up in the art world of New York in the 1980s, including star-studded artist salons, and their fateful meeting that led to the founding of The Baer Faxt almost 30 years ago.

[@feralmode]

awesome conversation. fascinating to see your differing perspectives. thanks for sharing this.

[@aliceshapirostudio]

Fascinating! Imo critics got replaced by product reviews to be more of a numbers value than a quality content value. I like that now everything is in the mix and possible, with new definitions of what the collective universe actually is. Yet since I reached 77 the nostalgia hangs on even though I never fit the blue chip mold. Luckily I've lived through it all and have the advantageous perspective of "realistically" pivoting to the middle way albeit somewhat melodramatically. During the 1980s I wrote reviews of openings for ARTspeak NYC and learned how judgmental I was, got humbled while learning to write about very mediocre art, and saw the problems artists were attempting to solve were universal issues, simply with more or less skill (or soul). Thanks guys!

[@jjjones7207]

The critics role should be one who contextualizes and evaluates the efficacy of works through social and philosophical lenses. Not as Greenburg/Sharpton promoters

[@allweb429]

Please tell Jerry to translate his books to Spanish 🙏

[@VolordKingdom]

something is awry here