Jerry Quotes

The forties, seventies, and the nineties, when money was scarce, were great periods, when the art world retracted but it was also reborn.

Turns out Picasso's passion for uncertainty, mystery, and the thrill of life never ended.

Think of an abstract painting as very, very low relief - a thing, not a picture.

The New York gallery scene being as incredibly overpopulated and overmoneyed as it is, deep conflicts and contradictions aren't hard to find.

The Met is not only the finest encyclopedic museum of art in the United States; it is arguably the finest anywhere.

In 1998, Artnet was the site that convinced me that if my writing didn't exist online, it didn't exist at all. It showed me criticism's future.

The German ueber-photographer Andreas Gursky was the perfect pre-9/11 artist.

New York being what it is, our museums are vertical, not horizontal. That means the stumbling blocks to architectural clarity are unavoidable - but certainly surmountable.

In some ways Lawler is a conceptual Diane Arbus. She's a stalker who takes advantage of situations. She pulls back curtains, causing normal things to look freakish and the freakish to turn mundane.

Mark Grotjahn's large new paintings abound with torrents of ropy impasto, laid down in thickets, cascading waves, and bundles that swell, braid around, or overlap one another.

Decades ago, Gerhard Richter found a painterly philosopher's stone. Like Jackson Pollock before him, he discovered something that had been in painting all along, always overlooked or discounted.

Early-twentieth-century abstraction is art's version of Einstein's Theory of Relativity. It's the idea that changed everything everywhere: quickly, decisively, for good.

Lucian Freud's career affirms that the only thing an artist can do is remain true to whatever vision, (lack of) talent, or ideas that happened to pick them in order to be made known to the world.

Now people look at 'The Scream' or Van Gogh's 'Irises' or a Picasso and see its new content: money. Auction houses inherently equate capital with value.

The last time money left the art world, intrepid types maxed out their credit cards and opened galleries, and a few of them have become the best in the world.

Giorgio Morandi's paintings make me think that artists may not totally choose, or even control, their subjects or style.

I rage against Vincent van Gogh for needing to die at 37, after painting for only ten years.

I have never really cooked, don't know how to use my dishwasher, and subsist mainly on prepared deli takeout. I don't even eat in restaurants much.

I'm not for or against video - or any medium or style, for that matter.

Biennial culture is already almost irrelevant, because so many more people are providing so many better opportunities for artists to exhibit their work.

I've always said that an art critic can put aside politics around art.

I have a soft spot for art that, in terms of subject matter and material, is in bad taste.

Of course art world ethics are important. But museums are no purer than any other institution or business. Academics aren't necessarily more high-minded than gallerists.

After its hothouse incubation in the seventies, appropriation breathed important new life into art. This life flowered spectacularly over the decades - even if it's now close to aesthetic kudzu.

My culture-deprived, aspirational mother dragged me once a month from our northern suburb - where the word art never came up - to the Art Institute of Chicago. I hated it.

Anybody who writes knows the horrible, wonderful, beautiful foulness that comes every week. A lot of moaning, screaming agony - "Oh my god, the deadline's coming."

I don't want to hear at all what the artist thinks about his art. And I'm not writing for the artist. I'm writing for the reader, and I want to tell the reader what I think.

There's a lot of hate mail from readers. There's hate mail, threats, stalkers... I think that I'm bulletproof every week when I've turned something in. I think, I'm a god.

I hate when dealers talk to me. I love dealers - they're some of our favorite people in the art world. But I hate if they do a sales pitch on me. I can't stand it.

To me, the building [of Museum of Arts and Design]now looks like a lovely jewel box, and the tiled façade reminds me of a heat shield.

Craft is not a category; it's a means. The folks running the museum [Museum of Arts and Design]are sharp, and they know this, but they are in a bind.

I was working in a family business-the fur business - and I hated it. I was reading the New York Times want ads, and I saw a photographer's assistant job in Vogue. Things went from there.

If you go to shows today, you have 16 celebrities sitting there, all these people who have nothing to do with fashion.

When you don't have standards, it's easier to exceed them.

I didn't know every day I would be discussing the tone of my voice with my wife. I thought it was a marriage. Apparently, it's a musical.

Having fun is a very particular skill. And not everyone has that skill.

Why does McDonald's have to count every burger that they sell? What is their ultimate goal? Do they want cows to surrender voluntarily?

If someone's lying, are their pants really on fire

There's no downside to fame and people who whine about it make me sick. It's the greatest thing in the world.

Men, as an organization, are getting more women than any other group working anywhere in the world. Wherever women are, we have men looking into it.

That's why breakups take two or three times- to build up immunity.

If airline seat cushions are such great flotation devices, why don't you ever see anyone take one to the beach?

There is no more embarrassing thing in my life than the fact that I have actually uttered the phrase, 'I would like to order the Ginsu Knife.'

The hardest thing in comedy is to have the biggest laugh at the end, and it’s the most satisfying thing.

I always did well on the essay questions. Just put everything you know on there, maybe you'll hit it.

Magazines are another medium I love, because 95% is simply based on 'How the hell are we going to fill all this blank space?

I have a nice bookshelf in my office, but not my house. I'm crass, but not that crass.

Ever noticed that no matter what happens in one day, it exactly fits in the newspaper?

I'll tell you what I like about Chinese people: they're hanging in there with the chop sticks, aren't they? You know they've seen the fork. They're staying with the sticks.

I love the day date. No wine, no shower.