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Friday, September 8, 2006

Don’t Miss This Jerry Saltz Piece

Posted by on September 8 at 9:07 AM

Which at first doesn’t seem to be about anything, and then turns out to be about everything. Of all the critics, only Jerry can do this. It ends:

The closest I’ve come to getting a handle on all this is something painter Eric Fischl has talked about. Imagine calling two pets, one a dog, the other a cat. Asking a dog to do something is an amazing experience. You say, “Come here, Fido,” and Fido looks up, pads over, puts his head in your lap, and wags his tail. You’ve had a direct communication with another species; you and Fido are sharing a common, fairly literal language. Now imagine saying, “Come here, Snowflake” to the cat. Snowflake might glance over, walk to a nearby table, rub it, lie down, and look at you. There’s nothing direct about this. Yet something gigantic and very much like art has happened. The cat has placed a third object between you and itself. In order to understand the cat you have to be able to grasp this nonlinear, indirect, holistic, circuitous communication. In short, art is a cat.

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wow. most people would say "the cat is stupid", but this analogy is f'n brilliant.

I though art was a cruel mistress? How is a cat going to spanky the bottom, unless it was some sort of freaky cat with nine tails? That is just silly.

I agree, it's a fun, thought-provoking, informative piece.

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