Writings on Art from The New Yorker
If you love reading about art you will love Peter Schjeldahl's Let's See: Writings on Art from The New Yorker. The 75 pieces cover international art exhibitions from 1998 to 2008 and Schjeldahl (pronounced shell-doll) is an ideal companion.
Schjeldahl has an enviable ability to appreciate a wide variety of art and to communicate that appreciation with originality and freshness. He admits he can't write more than two thousand words on any subject (about two and a half pages). This makes the book an excellent subway read — perfect for dipping into.
Schjeldahl has a gift for unforgettable remarks.
Andy Warhol's Mao portraits are "candy-colored icons of the totalitarian sublime."
That the Modern Art Museum in Munich had the confidence to hang their vast Warhol Oxidation Painting (urine on copper emulsion) over their grand staircase proclaims "unflappable cosmopolitanism.”
On the theme of vanitas ("human skulls and just-snuffed lamps and candles") in Dutch Old Master paintings: "I suspect that looming mortality was for these painters no more than what lost love is for Nashville songwriters — a standard hook.
On the limits of his own profession: "Good collectors routinely display keener judgment of relative quality than critics. Preposterous amounts of money seem to concentrate the mind."
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