Jerry Saltz Thinking Quotations

Damien Hirst is the Elvis of the English art world, its ayatollah, deliverer, and big-thinking entrepreneurial potty-mouthed prophet and front man. Hirst synthesizes punk, Pop Art, Jeff Koons, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Bacon, and Catholicism.

As I made my way through 'On Line,' the austere, stridently dogmatic, sometimes revelatory exhibition 'about line' at MoMA, I found myself thinking, 'Someone please wake me when the seventies are over!' In the empire of curators, the sun never sets on the seventies. It is the undead decade.

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

A lot of people still think caring about clothes is a dubious, unserious, frivolous, girlie thing.

The secret of food lies in memory - of thinking and then knowing what the taste of cinnamon or steak is.

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

Ofili is still a champion. It would be a huge mistake to think otherwise.

Much good art got made while money ruled; I like a lot of it, and hardship and poverty aren't virtues. The good news is that, since almost no one will be selling art, artists - especially emerging ones - won't have to think about turning out a consistent style or creating a brand. They'll be able to experiment as much as they want.

I often find myself privately stewing about much British art, thinking that except for their tremendous gardens, that the English are not primarily visual artists, and are, in nearly unsurpassable ways, literary.