
A Critic Looks at His Own Early Artwork, 35 Years Later - prismatic
http://www.vulture.com/2017/04/jerry-saltz-reviews-his-own-early-artwork.html
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amsilprotag
This slide show is a follow-up to [0]. I'd argue the context is more
interesting than the content. The original article is a kind of counterweight
to survivorship bias. What happens when an artist in his early twenties gets
some glimmers of potential success as a professional artist, and then goes
down the rabbit hole for about a decade only to find that their work is seen
as mediocre?

From the article:

Soon, I went to get Roberta. I told her the news [about rediscovering his art]
and asked her to come see. She came into my office and started looking. For a
long time. Longer than I had. One by one. Studying, not saying a word. After a
while she turned to me and said, “They’re okay.” Stricken, I said, “Okay?!
What do you mean ‘okay’? I think they’re beautiful. Aren’t they great?” She
turned back to the drawings, looked a little longer, and finally said,
“They’re generic. And impersonal. No one would know what these are about. And
what’s with the triangles? Are they supposed to be women?” I shot back, “No!
They’re Hell!” She talked about how many artists “never get better than their
first work.” And just like that, I was right back to where I was when I quit:
crushed, in crisis, frozen, panicky.

[0] [http://www.vulture.com/2017/04/jerry-saltz-my-life-as-a-
fail...](http://www.vulture.com/2017/04/jerry-saltz-my-life-as-a-failed-
artist.html)

~~~
forgotpwtomain
> What happens when an artist in his early twenties gets some glimmers of
> potential success as a professional artist, and then goes down the rabbit
> hole for about a decade only to find that their work is seen as mediocre?

Most of contemporary art is mediocre looking work which sinks or floats based
on fashion, connections and marketing.

~~~
theoh
There's a lot of truth to that, except for what you said about "mediocre
looking" which suggests that maybe you've missed something. Not all
contemporary art is trying to be "retinal" (Marcel Duchamp's word for the
visual) and beauty or visual impact has been something suspect for years,
sometimes coming into style, sometimes fading.

It _is_ largely a trivial, social, reputation-driven thing, funded by idiots
with pretensions... But that doesn't mean there isn't an intellectual side to
it, pursued by people who actually care about art and what it could be.

