The Beaded Masterpieces of Myrlande Constant The master weaver writes Haitian myths anew.
The Magical Last Hours of the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Show How viewers can change the meaning of a great artist’s work.
MoMA’s Glorified Lava Lamp Refik Anadol’s Unsupervised is a crowd-pleasing, like-generating mediocrity.
Marlon Mullen’s Anomalous Translations His new show at JTT gallery rearranges the visible into bright, pulsing abstractions.
William Eggleston’s Atmospheric Disturbances His photographs from the 1970s are a clairvoyant glimpse of the future.
best of 2022
Dec. 8, 2022
The Best New York Art Shows of 2022 Gonzo quilting, Mayan sculpture, and one wild, egalitarian group show made this a great year to hit the galleries.
public art watch
Dec. 6, 2022
Mashed Potatoes Meet Monet Climate activists have been celebrated for defacing great paintings. Why?
A Painting for a World in Collapse What The Raft of the Medusa reveals about contemporary political art.
Wolfgang Tillmans Changed What Photos Look Like A career retrospective becomes a cathedral of the mundane.
fall preview
Sept. 2, 2022
10 Art Shows We Can’t Wait to See This Fall Wolfgang Tillmans at MoMA, Theaster Gates at the New Museum, and a bid for W.E.B. Du Bois as America’s first abstract artist.
remembrance
July 27, 2022
Jennifer Bartlett’s Great Tree of Life The artist wanted to make a work “that had everything in it.”
remembrance
June 28, 2022
Remembering Sam Gilliam of the Astral Plane His draped paintings took the form to its outer limits.
Yu-Wen Wu’s Algorithmic Odyssey Around the World A brilliant work on the immigrant experience, courtesy of a glitch in the Matrix.
A Universe in South Central Lauren Halsey’s new show is an overflowing tribute to her Los Angeles neighborhood.
Matisse’s Miracle in Red A small exhibition at MoMA captures a big moment in Modernism.
The Whitney Biennial Falters On The 2022 show has just enough high points to get you through it — including three stunning Charles Ray sculptures.
robert gober
Jan. 24, 2022
What I Saw in Robert Gober’s Mirror Gazing into his new work was like seeing the wreckage of the recent past — the pandemic, protests, a country torn apart, and my own internal disarray.
Wayne Thiebaud, 1920–2021 His paintings of cakes, bathers, landscapes, paint cans, pastries, and cityscapes represent a luscious American sublime.
best of 2021
Dec. 17, 2021
The Best New York Art Shows of 2021 The art world has changed forever. But New York galleries still rule.
we’re buying people
Dec. 10, 2021
It Took an Artist to Make a Great Film About Art-Making Julian Schnabel made the three best movies about the mysteries of the creative process and a life lived in art.
John Currin Is the Caligula of Painting A new show is even more unsettling and disturbing than those that made his controversial name.
Jasper Johns and Me The artist who invented contemporary art also changed my life.
fall preview 2021
Sept. 1, 2021
10 Must-See Art Shows to Catch This Fall Jerry Saltz on his most anticipated New York museum shows — from Jasper Johns at the Whitney to the Bronx Museum’s Biennial.
chuck close
Aug. 20, 2021
Chuck Close, Artist Mutineer A critic considers the legacy of an intractable force in portraiture who turned himself into an artist non grata.
The Astor Place Kmart Was My Place to Be Normal I bought most of my clothes there, and ate cheap pizza in the café.
paul cezanne
July 7, 2021
Watching Cézanne Just … Look It took me until my early 50s to be smote by Cezanne. Now I love him.
david hammons
June 10, 2021
‘Anti-Art Star’ David Hammons Has Made a Monumental Mark With his new public sculpture, the almost-invisible, enormously influential “art gangster” has made it impossible to overlook him.
Frieze New York and the Return of the Megafairs Social reentry, sensory overload, and some very good art at the first big event since … well, you know when.
Think of NFTs As a Brush Maybe one day, they will be an artistic tool as powerful as any other.
The Detonations of Alice Neel The artist’s portrait show at the Met is packed with raw emotional power.
The Frick on Madison Finally Lets You See Fragonard Up Close Empowered by its new setting, work once considered frivolous becomes visual thunder.
Heartbreak and Resurrection in ‘Grief and Grievance’ at the New Museum A brutal, essential show that pulls from the canon of Black contemporary art.
Roni Horn’s ‘I Am Paralyzed With Hope’ Is a Flag for a New America The last thing I saw on Inauguration Day was a work of art on Instagram that put a spell on me.
close looks
Jan. 13, 2021
Posted Live From the Inferno Jerry Saltz on the pictures from the Capitol—some of the scariest, stupidest ever taken.
best of 2020
Dec. 11, 2020
The 10 Best Art Shows of 2020 Jordan Casteel, Noah Davis, and anything you could see in person.
the quarries
Dec. 7, 2020
The First (And Dear God, It Better Be the Last) Quarries In which we award the most original, absurd, scrappy, and ingenious works that shaped our year in quarantine.
public art watch
Nov. 10, 2020
The Mary Wollstonecraft Statue in London Is Bad Kitsch Feminism The shambolic mess looks a Rolls-Royce hood ornament by way of a sketchy Disney Fantasia figure.
public art watch
Oct. 13, 2020
4 Museums Decided This Work Shouldn’t Be Shown. They’re Both Right and Wrong. The art world is outraged at the postponement of a Philip Guston retrospective. But it may well be the right thing to do.
donald trump
Sept. 24, 2020
I Don’t Know Where This Ends. But I Cannot Stop Panicking About November. Last night my wife and I were lying in bed. One of us said, “What if we lose?” Immediately, anxiety completely overwhelmed us.
How Caravaggio Destroyed (and Saved) Painting Three revolutionary works still speak to us of doubt, inspiration, and grace.
fall preview
Sept. 4, 2020
Explore the World of Artists in Quarantine The Drawing Center presents vibrant new work created in lockdown.
gavin brown’s enterprise
July 23, 2020
Gavin Brown’s Enterprise Is Closing, and the Art World Suddenly Looks Different Brown is a special case in a class of special-case galleries and artists that emerged in the 1990s.
These Two Last Supper s Are My Quarantine Obsession Comparing two masterpiece treatments made just 50 years apart: one revolutionary and prevailing, the other genius and forgotten.
Christo Made Us Feel the Awe-Inspiring Impermanence of Human Achievement Some scoff at these works as mere spectacle. They are spectacle. But that isn’t nothing.
This Is the Saddest Picture I Have Ever Seen Sandro Botticelli’s La Derelitta , a 15th-century tableau of hopelessness, feels especially resonant right now.
first person
May 12, 2020
My Appetites Jerry Saltz on eating and coping mechanisms, childhood and self-control, criticism, love, cancer and pandemics.
The Last Days of the Art World … and Perhaps the First Days of a New One The art that emerges in the aftermath of this crisis will look very different. The rupture will be even more dramatic for galleries and museums.
Revisiting a 16th-Century Masterpiece of Mass Death From Self-Isolation in 2020 Lately, I have spent so much time contemplating Pieter Bruegel’s “The Triumph of Death” I feel I have almost been living inside it.
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