How to Be an Artist by Jerry Saltz

Author:Jerry Saltz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-03-16T16:00:00+00:00

30.

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Critics see by standing back: by looking at a whole show, comparing individual works, marking advances, regressions, repetitions, failures within the context of an artist’s previous work and that of their peers.

Artists see very differently. They get up very close to a work. They inspect every detail: its textures, its materials, its makeup. They touch it, look at its edges, peer at the object from every angle. (You can always tell the artists in museums—they’re the ones with their faces one inch from the surface of a work. Like one dog sniffing another.)

What are the artists doing? They’re seeing how it was made—what techniques, ingredients, gestures, and accidents are in play. When I’ve asked artists what they’re looking at so intently, they always say things like “the shininess,” “the bumpiness,” “the scratches on the side,” “the way it’s mounted,” “the printing technique,” “the pink Styrofoam backing,” “how they left the flies in the surface.” All these little matters loom large when they appear in someone else’s work. This is why all artists know that bad art teaches you as much as good art—maybe more.

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