Jerry Saltz Quotes

The value of kitsch exists in its novelty and in its connotations to more legitimate counterparts.

At its core, kitsch feels like something less than art; it panders to the middle and is flagrantly anti-art, though it often apes or references art. This referential, ersatz quality is why it's so fun to collect.

I find beauty in the grotesque, like most artists.

That's a problem I have a lot of the time with humor in music, where it just kind of stops at the obvious level of: 'Hey, isn't it something that's in bad taste?'

We live in an age that's very suspicious of preachy political rhetoric, which means that there's room for art that approaches these issues from the side - as satire, as parody, or as a kind of outlandish speculative proposition.

I'll accept bad taste in a minute, as long as there's some great comedy minds and performances.

I know that if I were to take ugly photographs, no one would be interested in looking at them.

For me, comedy and drama are all the same thing.

I always found that drama, really good drama, has a lot of comedy in it.

What I'm doing is art - it's low-brow art but there's a magic in that.

I guess I don't have much interest in writing straight drama. So whatever subject matter I choose will ultimately be dealt with in a comic way.

I was the least Pop of all the Pop artists.

My father was a painter and an anarchist, always getting in trouble for his performance art.

I don't ever try to make a serious social comment.

I don't want to paint rainbows: I want to make art that disturbs identity and challenges authority.

Pop art is the inedible raised to the unspeakable.

Most of the bad taste I've been accused of has been generic bad taste; it's been making fun of an idea as opposed to a person.

Caricature is rough truth.

It seems like there's a lot of people who just do not understand satire. They think it's weird. There's people who just don't understand you portray something or just explore a character, it means you're condoning it, saying this is the way to live.

People always say that my work is sensational or shocking but there are truly shocking things you could do, and my sculptures don't go anywhere near that.

So many people seem to prefer my silver-screenings of movie stars to the rest of my work. It must be the subject matter that attracts them, because my death and violence paintings are just as good.

I regard the writing of humor as a supreme artistic challenge.

Ksenia Sobchak as president is like Sergei Shnurov as an artist. It's satire. It's a very high-level art project.

If you want to look at a cheap shot, look at Mr. Koons's or Mr. Gober's art. By no definition is it art.

Of course we'd rather not see Picasso teacups and sheets.