Just Art It!

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Art historian who gave up writing about art for the love of design, art curator, and minimalism lover.

An artwork is supposed to delight, stimulate, and give joy. Ania Diduch talks to the New York critic Jerry Saltz about the essence of art.

They say New York never sleeps, but they do not say why. The 2023 answer to this phenomenon is simple to the point of being disappointing: New Yorkers never fall asleep because they drink billions of gallons of coffee. So does Jerry Saltz. An art critic and author of two books on the dynamics of the art world, he injects himself with at least 150 ounces of coffee a day. The investment pays off: when he isn’t drinking black magic, he’s roaming the country, visiting art exhibitions, writing, or posting on his Instagram account (with over 600,000 followers). He jokes about his coffee addiction, kneels in front of his favorite paintings, takes a lot of selfies, and encourages artists to believe in the power of their creativity by posting compelling mindset tips. He is as approachable as it gets, and his digital presence almost identically matches his real-life personality. The difference is, he is much funnier in person.

Ania Diduch: I wanted to ask you about the healing and transformative power of art. After all, it is because of art that you found drive after years of struggling as a painter and truck driver.

Jerry Saltz: Art changed my life a few times. The

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Ania Diduch:

Art historian who gave up writing about art for the love of design, art curator, and minimalism lover.

Publish date: 23.06.2023

Also read:

Rinus Van de Velde:

A painter who lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium.

Rinus Van de Velde is a Belgian artist whose work spans a range of media, though he is best known for his large-scale narrative drawings. Each features a handwritten caption of one of his musings, which are often witty or existential in nature. While the charcoal drawings often depict him as a central figure, the majority of his colorful oil pastel works only insinuate a human presence.

Though Van de Velde’s work reads as plein air, he has never been to the places in his drawings and instead imagines them from the confines of his studio. At times the works take the form of letters to other artists, and he is often in dialogue with the likes of Matisse, Monet, Hockney, and Doig. With his drawings, he has created a fantasy life for himself of the places he wishes to have seen and the life he wishes to have lived. The images presented here feature work from his most recent shows at Max Hetzler in Paris and Tim Van Laere in Rome.

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A fictional autobiography

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