Neuigkeiten

The story of the hotly disputed discovery and sales of a purported new Leonardo da Vinci work doesn’t paint the art market in a flattering light

Here is the bizarre story of the Salvator Mundi, or Saviour of the World; a tale of cynicism, power worship and greed, like a stage play by Ben Jonson. It is a mysterious painting from about 1500, showing Jesus with his right hand raised in blessing and the left holding a glass globe, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, or partly to him, or maybe to a near-contemporary student or copyist – but in any case declared to be the original work of the master by a group of experts and dealers in 2012. And as with all documentaries about art, we are left uneasily wondering if the galleries of the world are full of “wrong attributions” or straight-up fakes.

This rackety piece, much damaged and overpainted,...

Dianne Modestini and Ashok Roy inspecting the Naples copy of the Salvator Mundi (2019).

Copyright The Lost Leonardo – Photo by Adam Jandrup. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

“This is the most improbable story that has ever happened in the art world,” is how the subject of the documentary The Lost Leonardo is described by one of its expert interviewees. Few artworks as valuable as those by Leonardo DaVinci, so the possibility that a known but long lost painting by the great master has been found generates headlines far beyond the art world. But an interest in art is not needed to be fascinated by the twisty, shocking tale told by The Lost Leonardo, a tale more about money and power than art. This top-notch documentary documentary takes us deep into the murky, hidden world of Old Masters art, a story involving extreme wealth, shady financial dealing, greedy institutions, ambition academics, clever auction houses,...

Early in “The Lost Leonardo,” there is one of those whoa! moments that can make you think no movie is more gripping than a great documentary about the art world. In 2005, two dealers stumble onto an obscure painting of Jesus Christ, his hand raised in a sacramental gesture; the painting is being offered at auction in New Orleans. They think the painting has…something. So they team up to purchase it for $1,175.

Much of the canvas has been painted over, and after they bring it to the noted art restorer Dianne Modestini, she goes to work on it, removing layers of varnish and overpainting to uncover an image that is striking but damaged, dotted with white blotches and streaks, like emanations of a lightning flash. But as she starts the process of restoration, filling in the colors, teasing out a buried layer that shows the thumb in a different position...

An art object is not just art—it can also be a tool that confers power. The contemporary art world has often come under fire as a marketplace of assets for the wealthy, but your average layperson won’t know how when proceedings are carried out behind closed curtains. In the slick new documentary The Lost Leonardo, director Andreas Koefoed pulls back the veil and tells audiences the winding, tortuous tale behind the Salvator Mundi. Supposedly one of the last lost works of Leonardo da Vinci, the painting is subject to controversy that lies not just in its contested origin but its exchanges through powerful hands.

The Lost Leonardo is set up like a good mystery thriller, complete with the appropriate scoring and cold color grading to establish its tone. And like all good mysteries it begins simply enough: in 2005, Alexander Parish, a sleeper hunter—or one who looks for...

For those who might be wondering, there’s no sure-fire way to end up on Good Steely Dan Takes. Alex, the 35-year-old Brooklyn resident in charge of the improbably entertaining and increasingly popular Twitter account, which aggregates and celebrates niche riffs, memes, and one-liners related to the arch jazz-pop kingpins, says he simply knows a funny Steely Dan-related tweet when he sees one. We’d be inclined to agree.

Some prime examples: the one where the band’s funky 1976 fan favorite “The Caves of Altamira” perfectly complements an unhinged...

South by Southwest has unveiled a new batch of keynote conversations and featured speakers for their forthcoming tech-film-music confab which will take place March 13-22, 2020.

CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King will hold court in a Keynote with Bumble CEO and Founder Whitney Wolfe Herd, and Blackstone’s Global Head of Growth Equity Jon Korngold.

“Whitney Wolfe Herd’s journey from entrepreneur to CEO of one of the most successful tech companies focused on connecting people embodies the spirit of creativity and innovation that is inherent to SXSW.” said Hugh Forrest, Chief Programming Officer. “The event continues to be a unique destination for learning and discovery, and we’re honored to bring together so many influential voices and business leaders next March.”

In addition, there will be a Better Call Saul conversation with co-creators and executive producers Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould, actor Bob Odenkirk, and actress Rhea Seehorn. Acclaimed...

Andrea Bowers is an artist best known for her socially conscious art works and installations, much of which explores women’s issues — her work has touched on such topics as the Steubenville rape case and reproductive-rights activism in the era before Roe v. Wade. So it was somewhat surprising on Tuesday to see writer Helen Donahue accuse Bowers of using her image and her testimony of surviving sexual assault without her permission in a piece of art.

Open Secret, Bowers’ new Art Basel installation, “documents the important cultural shifts represented...

Legendary magician and actor Ricky Jay has passed away. He was 72-years old. Jay died at his home in Los Angeles on Saturday from natural causes. Ricky has been hailed as one of the greatest sleight of hand artists of all time, and was known for his crazy card and memory tricks. He was listed at one time in the Guinness Book of Records for throwing a playing card 190 feet at 90 miles per hour. In addition to his magic work, Jay was also a gifted writer, actor, and consultant.

Little is known about Richard Jay Potash's early life. He was born June 26th, 1946 in Brooklyn, New York. He didn't speak about his childhood very much at all to the public. He only spoke about his parents one time, and it was a funny story about switching his dad's toothpaste with Brylcreem. His grandfather, Max Kurtz, was an accountant and an amateur magician on the side,...

Jim Carrey is using his artistry and political platform on Twitter to not only alert people to “the demon that’s controlling us” he said at Vulture Festival in Los Angeles on Sunday, but also he wants people to know he “would love” to see Beto O’Rourke and Kamala Harris in the presidential race, although he has no issues with Hilary Clinton.

“I don’t think she would be a bad president,” said the star of Showtime’s Kidding. “I believe she knows what she’s doing, but the fact that so many people are conflicted about her, whether that’s right or wrong, is a problem and will lose votes, will lose swing votes…I would love to see Beto O’Rourke and Kamala Harris. I think she’s fantastic, and he’s a really incredible guy.”

Carrey then got a huge cheer from the festival audience when he added,...

Jerry Saltz, the Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic for New York Magazine, has apologized after posting two tweets with images suggesting President Donald Trump and Fox News host Sean Hannity were engaged in sexual intercourse.

Saltz said he deleted the tweets on Tuesday after he was accused of promoting homophobia.

“I deeply apologize for sharing an image that many found offensive and homophobic,” said Jerry Saltz “I have learned from their comments and have deleted the tweet.”

I deeply apologize for sharing an image that many found offensive and homophobic. I have learned from their comments and have deleted the tweet.

— Jerry Saltz (@jerrysaltz) July 31, 2018

Also Read: Joy Reid Issues New Apology, 'Embarrassed' by Old Blog Posts About John McCain, 9/11 and Israel

One image, which Saltz said he saw on the wall of New York City’s Canal Street subway station, featured the Fox News host servile on his knees preparing...

Hopefully, you’ve had a few minutes to play around with our Fall Entertainment Generator. But if you’re looking for straight and simple lists of things to look out for by medium, we’ll be breaking them out separately. Here’s a look at fall art exhibitions and installations.September 9/2Charles SwedlundThrough 10/3, Higher PicturesThe legendary octogenarian photographer trained with masters of abstraction Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind. 9/9“Katherine Bernhardt: Pablo & Efrain”Through, 10/24, Venus Over Manhattan Sensual color and compositional jam-ups of everyday objects, all rendered with the magical eye of a Berber rug. — Jerry Saltz 9/10“Dana Schutz: Fight in an Elevator” Through 10/24, Petzel GallerySchutz’s colorful abstracted figural pictorial structure does with space and composition what Brice Marden does with his looping lines. — J.S. Mike Kelley Through 10/24, Hauser & WirthKelley’s Kandors — late works that borrow their name from the capital of Superman’s home planet and take shape...

A couple of weeks ago, inspired by a nap at the new Whitney, Jerry Saltz solicited stories of people making out, or more, in museums — a pastime he worried was getting harder and harder, so to speak, now that museums were so crowded. The anecdotes told another story, and last week Jerry even showed up on “Sex Lives,” New York Magazine's sex podcast, to talk about them. Since the stories kept piling in, we figured we’d share some more (and take the opportunity to remind you that a new episode of “Sex Lives” can be found each Wednesday on iTunes orSoundCloud). I went to the James Turrell retrospective at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. I was with a girl who I had been seeing for a couple of weeks, and we were pretty handsy the whole time. I was pretty into the exhibition, I have a degree...

A conversation between senior art critic Jerry Saltz and editor David Wallace-Wells about just what to make of Kim Kardashian, her sort of brilliant book Selfish, and the weird fact that all of a sudden, everyone seems to be taking her very, very seriously. David Wallace-Wells: Jerry, last year you wrote a fascinating essay about Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, and the “new uncanny” you detected both in their weird music-video project “Bound 2,” and also in their weird behind-the-bell-jar life as celebrities. Mostly, people mocked you for it. Last December, we published a derisive post about Kim showing up at Art Basel — “Kim Kardashian Thinks Her Ass Is a Work of Art” — which was a huge hit because it mocked her. When she announced she was publishing a book of selfies with Rizzoli, there was another round of mocking. But a couple of weeks ago, Kim actually released...

Our senior art critic Jerry Saltz will take the New York Magazine rowboat out to Randalls Island on Saturday morning to take questions from the nomadic, tent-dwelling island people who reside there for Frieze, subsisting entirely on Champagne and pricey quinoa. The talk is at noon. But get there early! Tom Eccles, the executive director of Bard's Center for Curatorial Studies, will moderate. If you don’t think you can make it out, leave your questions in the comments below. (He took your questions on Facebook this past December, if you want to see if yours qualifies as a too-frequently-asked-question.) But no haters!

When New York's local Fox affiliate showed Picasso's record-breaking Les Femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’), the 1955 canvas that sold for $179,365,000 at Christie's on Monday, it censored it. Of course, the only thing obscene about it was the price. A tweet from our senior art critic Jerry Saltz kicked off what will surely be the art meme of the month. (Notice that the backside of one of the figures is unblurred — such are our standards.)...

New York's senior art critic and patron saint Jerry Saltz appeared on Anderson Cooper 360 last night to talk about the results of Christie's $700 million-plus Monday auction results. "Auctions are nasty pieces of work," he said, regretting that the $179 million sale of Picasso's Les Femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’) means that it will likely disappear from the public. “Museums can’t possibly compete with these kinds of people,” Saltz said. This kind of exchange might not be all that new, however: “Art and money have slept with each other since they first met,” he added. Watch the full video of the appearance below.

Pollen is in the air, which means that Vulture Fest is drawing closer! Our already-packed schedule just got a little more full: We're hosting a conversation with beloved Ya author John Green; a breakfast tour with Jerry Saltz at the new Whitney Museum; a screening of The Overnight, followed by a discussion with its cast and crew, including Jason Schwartzman; and our animated voices panel. Here's a closer look at the events:  New York/Vulture art critic Jerry Saltz will give an ultraexclusive private tour of the new Whitney Museum bright and early.  John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars, talks about his young-adult novel empire with Vulture editor Margaret Lyons. Back by popular demand, Vulture is reprising the Animated Voices panel, bringing back your favorite voices, including: John Roberts and Larry Murphy from Bob's Burgers, Kenny and Keith Lucas from Lucas Bros. Moving Co., Alex Borstein...

Artist Chris Burden, who had a retrospective at the New Museum in 2013 (he stuck that boat on the façade of the building), died of malignant melanoma in Los Angeles. Read Jerry Saltz's heartfelt reminiscence here. Performance was the cornerstone of Burden's practice early on, starting with Five Day Locker (1971), in which he stayed inside a locker at the University of California, Irvine, for five days. A few of these performances were videotaped and now exist on YouTube. Shoot (1971) This is perhaps Burden's most famous work. This tape begins with a fuzzy recording over a black screen — it's Chris Burden saying he's ready to be shot. Then an image appears, and Burden is standing in a corner with a man pointing a rifle at him from a few feet away. Then there's a pop. The piece quite possibly could have been fatal, but in the end, the...

Back in December, we would occasionally interrupt the regular programming here at Seen to bring you a batch of found photography from Oliver Wasow, whom New York's senior art critic Jerry Saltz has known since the East Village scene in the '80s. Back in the day, Wasow would scour the archives at book-filled libraries (remember those?) and find old photos — Kodachrome ghosts of people's lives — and then show them in his gallery. Now he uses Pinterest and a has big social-media following. During Seen's last iteration, we brought you People Standing Next to Televisions, People Standing Next to Trees, and — wait for it — People Standing Next to Trees and Televisions. And now, with Mother's Day on the horizon, we give you mothers with their children. At the very least, let this serve as a reminder to call mom on Sunday.

Last week, the Whitney museum opened its new building to the public with the exhibition "America Is Hard to See," spanning several floors and drawn entirely from the museum's permanent collection. Because that collection is what it is, the emphasis was on work from the first half of the 20th century — art from the modern period that isn't exactly "modernist," American painting before Abstract Expressionism and Pop really put America on the global art map. Here, senior art critic Jerry Saltz talks with editor David Wallace-Wells about what exactly can be seen in the revelatory show.David Wallace-Wells: Jerry, walking through the Whitney last week with you was a blast. But I also had a weird feeling — a sort of déjà-vu-y feeling. This may sound kind of insane, but for a while, I've been secretly wondering whether modernism ever even really took place in America. Mostly I was...

The Whitney Museum of American Art opened its doors to the general public — that is, everybody who is everybody, not just everybody who is anybody — this morning, so if you somehow never managed to snag an invite to one of the three dozen or so “members only” tours of the new building, well, it’s all yours now. But the reality is, the place has been up and running for nearly two weeks, so here’s a way to fake your way through a Whitney-centric conversation this weekend. Now that Roberta Smith’s review appeared in today’s Times, every major critic has committed his or her opinions, so it's time to fake having your own, even if you’re too lazy to walk down to Gansevoort Street.First up, here’s our own Jerry Saltz on the museum. You really do need to read all of his several thousand...

And … good night! This is, sad to say, the very last post of Seen, the limited-run art site we launched November 17, with Jerry Saltz’s essay on the art world’s new conservatism. It closes today with his conversation with Matthew Weinstein about “Gaga’s law” and how art culture has eaten pop culture (which Lady Gaga actually retweeted — approvingly!). Along the way, we had a total blast, and before we turn the lights off for good, we thought we’d highlight a bunch of our favorite stuff from our 33 days in the art world ... There were fantastic slideshows of art, from a show curated by Eric Fischl about America’s doll obsession to Todd Oldham’s outsider art collection to Oliver Wasow's found-object art of people standing next to televisions. And even a slideshow of tattoos of art. We had fantastic video, including an exclusive clip Kara Walker secretly...

Below, a sort of social-media-era, two-person panel discussion between our art critic Jerry Saltz and the artist Matthew Weinstein — on the nature of pop fame, art stars, and what could possibly be drawing so many celebrities into Jeffrey Deitch’s orbit these days.Jerry Saltz: Matthew, I know you as an artist who also used to write criticism. I looked at your Facebook page the other day and got stopped in my tracks by an amazing couple of paragraphs of something like Critical Cultural Theory. You seemed to be writing that an inversion has taken place in the flow of fame. Whereas we in the art world used to go to other sectors in order to have fame or coolness rub off on us — to the worlds of fashion, music, movies, wherever — now the stars of those worlds are coming to the art world for some sort of stamp...

Last week, as part of our year-in-culture extravaganza, our art critic Jerry Saltz named his picks for the 19 best gallery shows of 2014. Here, he follows that up with his favorite museum exhibitions of the year. 1. "Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs" at MoMA To the last, I grapple with thee, MoMA ... for hate's sake, I spit my criticisms at you in hopes that you will get out of your own way, create usable galleries for temporary exhibitions, and double the space for the permanent collection (rather than, as you’ve promised to do, double-down on useless event- and temporary-exhibition space). I'm not alone in my MoMA odium. In ten years, I haven't met a single person in the art world who isn't thoroughly frustrated by and furious with MoMA — although I may be the only one who's gone the full-Ahab about it.But at year's end, let us set...

Our senior art critic Jerry Saltz has long known the artist Oliver Wasow — the two met in the '80s, when Wasow used to run an art gallery in the East Village. These days, Wasow has become more well known for his humorous and playful found photography, which has drawn a sizable following on social media, where he shares images he has discovered across the Internet. Wasow used to go deep-diving in libraries and physical archives, but as more and more material has become digitized, he’s enjoyed a certain amount of freedom and immediacy that he has never experienced before. "Pinterest has really changed things,” Wasow explains, “I follow hundreds of people who have similar interests to me. Archives can now be exponentially shared. Often it’s difficult to trace the origins of the image — in theory, when someone pins something from someone else’s Tumblr, that is then...

Between Leonardo DiCaprio slapping a cool near-million on a Frank Stella and Ivanka Trump sauntering down the aisles with Wendi Murdoch, people are buying art. The initial first-day sales reports are brimming with major coups for contemporary heavyweights, such as Anish Kapoor, Richard Prince, Mickalene Thomas, and others. And while even our Jerry Saltz “loves that art fairs can make money for artists and galleries,” the money talk can be a limited conversation, especially reserved for those power collectors who were out in full force yesterday, like Don and Mera Rubell, Peter Brant, Beth Rudin DeWoody, and Jill and Peter Kraus. From our stroll through the Convention Center — it’s hard to not get lost in that thing — we bring to you the highlights from Wednesday.Lehmann Maupin Teresita Fernández is having an excellent year. There was her enchanting show at Mass MoCA, and now there’s her upcoming Madison...

As Jerry Saltz has well pointed out, the selfie did not originate with the advent of the iPhone. Look, for example, at Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, who painted over 100 self-portraits in his lifetime — more images than almost anyone else pre-photography — and together, the portraits are more than just an act of vanity when you consider Rembrandt was discovered young, got rich and famous, then blew all his money and went bankrupt. A Cribs episode at his peak would have been compelling: This here is my suit of ancient Japanese armor, my amazing collection of busts of Roman emperors, and in this room here, I keep my printing press. His rise as a talented artist and eventual financial downfall comprise the kind of story we love today, and the paintings he made capture this trajectory. Rembrandt's captions are in his expression and dress: He makes faces at himself and depicts...

The following recommended reading lists have been excerpted from An Ideal Syllabus: Artists, Critics, and Curators Choose the Books We Need to Read, a slender little book published in 1998 by Frieze and edited by our own Jerry Saltz. “Too many syllabuses I gathered from colleagues and art schools all over the country indicated far too solid a consensus,” wrote Saltz in his introduction, “The same authors are prescribed, chapter for chapter, page for page. If everybody thinks differently how come much of what is assigned to students (at every level) is the same? Large doses of Derrida, Baudrillard and Lacan. If art is pluralistic and composing from all over, why are ideas presented as unified and monolithic? Mighn’t there be an array of more private syllabuses out there? So I asked.” We’re glad he did, and now, with the advent of Seen, we’re doing it again; in...

While Jerry Saltz reminds us quite eloquently what is wrong with MoMA’s recently announced plans for expansion, we want to take a moment to share this rendering of the museum through the lens of a Jedi. “I love MoMA,” explains the creator of this particular Death Star, artist Aaron Holz. “They have one of the greatest collections of art in the world. But from the sound of it, the newly proposed expansion has all of the heart and intimacy of the Death Star: a giant space that doesn’t take into account linear wall space or the scale of a majority of works in their permanent collection. The current atrium kills large works such as Monet’s Water Lilies that should feel expansive and instead [makes them] look more like a postage stamp. There is a dark side of contemporary museum architecture that fails to account for human scale and how...

Hello! Welcome to Seen, New York Magazine's new, limited-run, online art magazine, which launches today and continues through December 19. New York has been a part-time art magazine for 40 years — from covering graffiti in 1968 to Oscar Murillo in 2014. At least for the next five weeks, Seen is an experiment in taking that coverage full-time, in the form of a romping daily chronicle of the art world — the traveling circus of galleries and gallery shows, museums, and art fairs, too, but also the bigger, embarrassingly alluring kaleidoscopic universe of style, design, fashion, film, and (a little bit of) nightlife. A big part of it will be our art critic and resident sage, Jerry Saltz, who'll be doing more of his insightful, incisive, all-hours commentary about art, the art world, and the art market here. But Seen is much more than Jerry — there will be regular contributions from Carl Swanson, Wendy Goodman,...

New York's Jerry Saltz has called the MoMA's "Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs" a can't-miss event filled with "visual thunder, physical profundity, and oceanic joy." Here, we asked a few aspiring after-school critics what they thought about the exhibition.1. Laney KabakerAge 4½ Which painting is your favorite? That one, because it has stars in it. Because he did it at night. Do you know how? With scissors. Is that what you use when you make art at home? I use paint! And I do stars. ************** 2. Peter and Maggie EllisonBoth 13, visiting from California Maggie: It’s different when you see them for real, because when you get close enough you can see everything, like the pins. But if you’re far away, it just looks like a painting. Peter: These are impressions of stuff. A painting might be more real. Would you like to be an artist someday? Peter: Maybe. There’s not...

One of the most unusual treats in this month's inaugural Vulture Festival was a special session that ticket-holders had with our art critic, Jerry Saltz. He took them on an art walk through Chelsea, discussing the state of the gallery scene, the differences between artists and civilians, and the changing role of art criticism. As a bonus, attendees got to hear from superstar artist Robert Longo, who talked about his philosophy and the way he sees the art world working today. Check out this video of some of the art walk's highlights!

New York is about to be awash in art, with the Whitney Biennial going up and the Armory Show coming to town. But New York is always awash in great art (much of it not for sale—imagine that). Here, critic Jerry Saltz has created six walking tours of galleries, museums, and the street, singling out 43 particular pieces he loves. The slideshow can give you only a taste—illustrated or crudely reproduced—so put on good shoes, and take a look at these works for yourself.*This article appeared in the February 24, 2014 issue of New York Magazine.

Michel Majerus Matthew Marks Gallery, NY "I create, you copy nature." Pablo Picasso, in conversation with Balthus "In the [19]90s painting didn’t repel criticism; it absorbed it… fake painting created fake criticism." Dr. Hope Ardizzone, The Death of the Death Motif in Post-Millennial Painting "Even the paintings looked dead…" Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale The audience has a taste for shit. The critics have a taste for shit. James Franco, Actors Anonymous "Wie man dem toten Hasen die Bilder erklärt" Joseph Beuys, Action, 26 November 1965 at the Galerie Schmela in Düsseldorf

(image above, depressive neurosis 2000 Acrylic on cotton 102 1/4 x 177 inches; 260 x 450 cm)

James Franco's body was found yesterday in the toilet of a club called Cisboi, so we are at one of the Gagosian galleries tonight sitting shiv and waiting for Marina Abramović and Willem Dafoe to read excerpts from Franco's many books [James Franco: Dangerous Book Four Boys, A California Childhood, Actors Anonymous, Palo Alto: Stories] -- the "we" being Michael Lee Nirenberg,...

When the Museum of Modern Art wrapped up six months of foregone agonizing and decided to raze the American Folk Art Museum, it claimed to be sacrificing a small work of architecture for the sake of Big Art. MoMA’s prescription for the ideal viewing experience is more galleries, more wall space, more hallways, and bigger lobbies. MoMA isn’t so much growing as it is engineering itself to pump high-volume crowds as efficiently as possible through its art-lined pipes.There is a more attractive alternative. The museum could let the Folk Art building stand, perhaps punching open a small ground-floor passageway to supplement the front door. My colleague Jerry Saltz has called it “a useless place for the exhibition of art,” but I wonder. Certainly, keeping it would present curators with an assortment of challenges, but MoMA’s vast treasury includes plenty of drawings, design objects, and architectural models...

Every week, Vulture faces the big, important questions in entertainment and comes to some creative conclusions. This week, we evaluated the artistic merits of Kanye's new music video, translated some Ja'mie slang, and defended The Food Network (sort of). You may have read some of these stories below, but you certainly didn’t read them all. We forgive you.Q: What did Jerry Saltz think of Kanye's new music video for "Bound 2"? A: Saltz thinks it represents a sensibility he calls the New Uncanny. He elaborates by writing, "'Bound 2' tells me that empirical observation, obsessive introspection, creativity, cravenness, ego, and id are combining in new uncanny ways, and that a segment of the population that has the means to embrace this total merging is evolving in strange ways." Translation: awesomesauce. Q: What did you think of James Franco and Seth Rogen's parody video, "Bound 3"? A: Jody Rosen puts...

Michael Williams: Paintings

The Canada Gallery, NYC

Through December 8, 2013

Int. Bellylaffs Comedy Club - Evening

House Band [Jay-z/Kanye West]: I ball so hard muthafuckas wanna find me, first niggas gotta find me / Tha shit cray / Tha shit cray / Tha shit cray / Ain’t it, Jay?

Music Fades.

Sidekick [Tracy Morgan]: Give it up for Jay-z and Kanye West, Ladies and Gentlemen… and now, you have probably seen his recent special It Ain't Gonna Suck Itself [Applause]…Bellylaffs is pleased to present one white boy who really does ball hard…

Host [James Franco] - enters stage right]: Thank you Tracy! Thank you! [Applause] Thank you! It’s true, I really do ball hard. Very hard. Mostly by myself… [Laughter/Applause]… Thank you…

Host: So this guy, who has never been sick a day in his life, calls his boss. He says, "I can’t come in today, I’m sick." The boss says, "No problem, take the day off.

The Queens Museum, a sometime stepchild of New York’s cultural life, has just reopened after a $69 million renovation that doubled its space (to 105,000 square feet) and aims at doubling attendance (to 200,000 visitors a year). Art critic Jerry Saltz and architecture critic Justin Davidson toured it together.Justin Davidson: Jerry, I’ve driven by on the Grand Central Parkway hundreds of times, and I never paid much attention to the low, gray building lurking by the side of the road. Now it’s impossible to miss. That new polka-dot glass screen gleams even on a cloudy day, and at night it glows all different colors. Jerry Saltz: Those LEDs come off sort of mall-like. But that’s the sort of Learning From Las Vegas, we-wanna-look-vernacular style this building seems to be going for. Davidson: I know that artists will be able to program the façade, but really it...

Today on Reddit, our own art critic Jerry Saltz held his very first Ama. Here are our favorite answers from the rapid-fire online forum, which saw Jerry weighing in on all manner of art world topics, both highbrow and low — from the Louvre (“your architecture is stupid, and everyone gets lost there”) to Hova (“I fell in love with Jay Z's smile”).When asked about his favorite museum in the city: The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the greatest, encyclopedic museum on Earth. Sorry, Louvre, your architecture is stupid, and everyone gets lost there. At The Met, you see art within 25 feet of the door. At the Louvre, you've got to walk a half-mile. Fix this. When asked whether he would pay pay $140 million dollars for a Francis Bacon triptych if he had the cash: Auctions make me sick. I can't stand them. They're ruining the art world. They...

Looks like Banksy can’t go a full week during his New York “residency” without posting something outside his usual stenciled and sculpted work.

This week, he posted a video of ants crawling in and out of an ant-hill before the camera zooms out and it looks more like a, well, you can see for yourself. On Wednesday, the street artist posted an image with the sentence, “Today’s art has been cancelled due to police activity.” Is that a joke, Banksy, or a warning or some sort?

Whatever the meaning, it meant New Yorkers got one fewer art piece...

On Friday night, HBO released Jay Z's "Picasso Baby" video, which was famously filmed while Hova performed the song for six straight hours for a crowd of art world residents, regular celebrities, and cool-looking civilians at Chelsea's Pace Gallery last month. Among the more recognizable names and faces in the final cut are Marina Abramović, Judd Apatow, Marilyn Minter, George Condo, Alan Cumming, Fab Five Freddy, Jim Jarmusch, Jemima Kirke, Jenna Lyons, Glenn O'Brien, Rosie Pérez, Cynthia Rowley, Wale, Michael K. Williams, Adam Driver, Dustin Yellin, actual Picasso baby Diana Widmaier Picasso, and our own Jerry Saltz. Everyone seemed to have a decent — if occasionally awkward — time, but the most interesting part of the 8-minute production is probably listening to the voiceover of Jay comparing concerts and performance art, and watching Abramović's genuine enthusiasm for the project throughout.

Would you like to spend your Friday night with Jay Z? Then stay tuned tonight for the premiere of Hova's new music video, "Picasso Baby," which bows on HBO at 11 p.m., following Jay's appearance on Real Time With Bill Maher. Culled down from six hours of footage, the "Picasso Baby" video chronicles Jay's delightful performance-art stint at Chelsea's Pace Gallery in July, when the Magna Carta Holy Grail mogul rapped his song over and over for a host of art-world luminaries (including our own critic, Jerry Saltz) and gadflies including Judd Apatow and Alan Cumming. How did things turn out, and how did this wild event come together in the first place? Vulture rang up "Picasso Baby" helmer Mark Romanek for the answers.So, did Jerry Saltz make the final cut?[Laughs.] He's in there, actually! You know, there was 30 hours of footage, and I've spent the last fifteen days...

Name That Lyric: Acclaimed Poet or Jay Z? More foreign than China or Vagina / More alarming than going down Niagara on Viagra. By Johannah King-Slutzky and Kate Hakala "Rap is poetry...You take those lyrics and you pull them away from the music and you put them up on the wall somewhere, and someone had to look at them, they would say, 'This is genius. This is genius work.'” So says Jay Z, who recently confirmed hip hop's art-status with a top-secret gallery performance attended by the likes of death-stare legend Marina Abramovic and confused art critic Jerry Saltz, who admitted "hip-hop is not exactly my bailiwick" before he gave Jay Z's performance an A+. Meanwhile, Jay Z is Afka'ing it up by asserting that he's dropping his hyphen now that he's performing at minimalist Chelsea galleries. We'll play his [...]...

Every week, Vulture faces the big, important questions in entertainment and comes to some creative conclusions. This week we were all about Jay-z's new album, classic Real World/Road Rules fights, and a little something called Sharknado. You may have read some of these stories below, but you certainly didn’t read them all. We forgive you.Q: What is it like to dance with Jay-z?A: Ask our art critic, Jerry Saltz, who attended a six hour performance of "Picasso Baby" that Hova put on this week at a Chelsea art gallery. "He started dancing. So did I, or at any rate what passes for an older balding Jewish man trying to bust some moves ... Somehow, he'd taken me around my waist, and we were strutting around the room. My hands were ice cold. I was shaking. My reactions were shot." It's like that, but more. Read his very entertaining piece here.

Jay-z hit New York City’s Pace Gallery on Wednesday to do a six-hour performance of “Picasso Baby” for a remarkably well-behaved crowd. The footage will reportedly be turned into a music video, but in the meantime, here are some of the Vines and photos from inside the event. Adam Driver was there! (You can see him hiding in the background.) So was Marina Abramovic, who got to walk in a circle around Jay-z.And then she went forehead to forehead with Jay: New York's own Jerry Saltz was there, too. And here is one bonus crowd shot. (Thanks to Complex's Cedar Pasori for the Vines. She has a bunch more.)...

In 1968, Donald Judd — the artist known for his boxy, implacable sculptures and wall pieces — paid $68,000 for 101 Spring Street, a graceful but dilapidated five-story cast-iron building, and began his renovation by hauling out truckloads of trash. Over the years, he kept installing art and modifying the architecture in pursuit of an ideal balance. After his death in 1994, the building sat, stilled. Starting on June 3, after a three-year, $23 million restoration, the Judd Foundation will open 101 Spring to the public for guided tours in groups of eight by reservation. Art critic Jerry Saltz and architecture critic Justin Davidson walked through it together.Justin Davidson: This house feels like the total work of art. We get to see how Judd slept in a Judd bed, ate at a Judd table, washed his hands in a Judd sink, and enjoyed the art he and his friends made.

At Vulture, Jerry Saltz bemoans the “Death of the Gallery Show,” particularly the effect new ways of seeing and purchasing art are having on the discourse around art itself: Gallery shows: light of my life, fire of my eyes. I love and long for them. I see maybe 30 a week, every week of the year. Much of what I know about contemporary art I learned from hanging around artists and from going to galleries. Bad shows teach me as much as good ones. A great thing about galleries—especially for someone who spends most of his time alone at a …...

The first season of Bravo.s Work of Art: The Next Great Artist, which attempted to transpose the competitive reality format that worked so well for Project Runway and Top Chef to the art world, was a remarkable success. They managed to get all the elements right on their first try: A competent host in China Chow. Two great judges: handsome New York gallery owner Bill Powers and art critic Jerry Saltz, who ran a series of...  More >>...

Bravo has set the premiere date for the second season of the Sarah Jessica Parker-produced Work of Art: The Next Great Artist.

The show returns on Wednesday, Oct. 12 at 9/8c and pits 14 up-and-coming artists against each other as they battle for $100,000 and a solo show at the Brooklyn Museum. China Chow will host, Bill Powers and Jerry Saltz return as judges and world-renowned auctioneer Simon de Pury will serve as a mentor.

Read More >...

As we all know by now, Bravo is an aspirational network for arts-loving gays, tattooed chefs, and sociopathic Botox addicts, and you might think that in light of the wealthy demographic the network attracts that it would take good care of its stars. Not so much, reveals art critic Jerry Saltz, who served as the most outspoken judge on the hopelessly addictive summer series Work of Art: The Next Great Artist. "I certainly did not do it for the money -- I made in the mid-three figures per episode -- or the hours," he wrote in New York. Is this why the Watch What Happens set costs six dollars? [New York]...