defining good art
"We sell art short if we’re not critical of it. Being critical of art is a way of showing art respect. People are wrong to say: “It’s mean to write a negative review.” On the contrary, it’s a very intimate, even loving thing to do." - Jerry Saltz
“The word ‘pain’ is in the word ‘painting.’” - Brice Marden
“The process of making art,” writes Rebecca Solnit, “is the process of becoming a person with agency, with independent thought, a producer of meaning rather than a consumer of meanings that may be at odds with your soul, your destiny, your humanity.”[2]
Cameron Russell • How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone: A Memoir
My working definition of art is thus derived in part from both a moderate institutional theory that recognizes the important role that the museum space plays in determining meaning and mediating a history, tradition, and theory of what occurs in that space, and an ecological theory of art that affirms that in its making and viewing, art does
... See moreDaniel A. Siedell • God in the Gallery (Cultural Exegesis): A Christian Embrace of Modern Art
- “Art exposes us to the universal experience of being a meaning-making animal in a universe where meanings falter. A good definition of art, it seems to me, might be the science of making meaning-making tools.”
Garth Greenwell • Just a moment...
If museums don’t let more of the world in soon, soon the world will let fewer museums in. - Jerry Saltz
I want writing to form communities, create a chorus, be a living text of compulsions. - Jerry Saltz
By this definition, art is less an object and more a process of exploration.
Amy Whitaker • Art Thinking: How to Carve Out Creative Space in a World of Schedules, Budgets, and Bosses
"Art has many purposes. But for the first 50,000 years of its life, it was meant to make you fertile, to ward off demons, to speak to the dead, to guide you through the afterlife, to protect cities, to make it rain, etc" - Jerry Saltz