I have a soft spot for art that, in terms of subject matter and material, is in bad taste.
Interpretation
The quote expresses an appreciation for art that challenges conventional standards of taste.
Jerry Saltz highlights the value and beauty found in art that may be deemed as in poor taste by traditional standards. By embracing such art, he suggests that creativity often thrives outside the bounds of societal norms and that there is significance in the unconventional or unrefined aspects of artistic expression.
In practice
In a discussion about contemporary art movements, one might say this quote to illustrate the diversity of artistic expression.
'Untitled' is a time machine that can transport you to 1992, an edgy moment when the art world was crumbling, money was scarce, and artists like Tiravanija were in the nascent stages of combining Happenings, performance art, John Cage, Joseph Beuys, and the do-it-yourself ethos of punk. Meanwhile, a new art world was coming into being.
Artists working for other artists is all about knowing, learning, unlearning, initiating long-term artistic dialogues, making connections, creating covens, and getting temporary shelter from the storm.
The giant white cube is now impeding rather than enhancing the rhythms of art. It preprograms a viewer's journey, shifts the emphasis from process to product, and lacks individuality and openness. It's not that art should be seen only in rutty bombed-out environments, but it should seem alive.
In art, scandal is a false narrative, a smoke screen that camouflages rather than reveals. When we don't know what we're seeing, we overreact.
I don't often go to curator or artist walk-throughs of exhibitions. For a critic, it feels like cheating. I want to see shows with my own eyes, making my own mistakes, viewing exhibitions the way most of their audience sees them.
Donβt go to a museum with a destination. Museums are wormholes to other worlds. There are ecstasy machines. Follow your eyes to wherever they lead you, stop, get very quiet, and the world should begin to change for you. And if you see me, say something! We can talk about it together.
It wasn't stone. It wasn't welded steel. It wasn't traditional sculpture. They thought it was craft, or something else, but not art. They couldn't define it in the early Fifties when I was starting out.
Because anybody can write, but not everybody invents new forms of writing. Gertrude Stein invented a new form of writing and her imitators are just "talents."
What is Music? How do you define it? Music is a calm moonlit night, the rustle of leaves in Summer. Music is the far off peal of bells at dusk! Music comes straight from the heart and talks only to the heart: it is Love! Music is the Sister of Poetry and her Mother is sorrow!
All novelists should live in two different worlds: a real one and an unreal one.
I work as diligently on my canvases as the laborers do in their fields.
Every great film should seem new every time you see it.
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