I remember making a
I remember making a videotape in a fancy hair salon in Beverly Hills. The soundtrack in the salon had a whole worldview behind it – I was interested in things like that. David Salle
David Salle
It sounds formulaic now,
It sounds formulaic now, but at the time, I was interested in the difference between the thing and the representation of the idea of the thing – the space between the two. David Salle
Really it becomes a
Really it becomes a question of architecture. How do you move people through a space and allow them to have an experience? I, probably more than most people, suffer from museum fatigue. I always want to just stay still or sit in a chair and look at one thing, but that’s not the experience of … Read more
When I first came
When I first came to New York, I knew some painters older than myself. I was kind of the kid who was allowed to hang out with them. That is more the way people talked in those days, it was perfectly normal to question a work’s fundamental premises and its fundamental visual manifestations. It was … Read more
What if everything in
What if everything in a museum is crap? It’s entirely possible; it’s not the end of the world. David Salle
There were successful ways
There were successful ways of expressing the attitude and less successful ways. I think that spirit is very much alive today actually. That’s what a certain generation of curators is alert to or on the look out for: an attitude. And it is a brilliant and moving spectacle when it happens. That suspension of disbelief … Read more
I feel like it’s
I feel like it’s not so much a tradition as a system that has been codified over the centuries starting in the Renaissance that applies to any painted surface. So if you’re engaging in paintings, this is the language that one has to learn and is obliged to speak. I was very fortunate that I … Read more
I think it’s what
I think it’s what any artist would want: to feel like their work can be taken in on a level of experience beyond the headline or the press release. I don’t think any artist wants to be reduced to a press release. We have a whole industry whose function it is to process and present … Read more
I’m always very grateful
I’m always very grateful for stories about the great coffeehouse wits in Vienna at the turn of the last century. People would wait for a chance to stand near the table where the great wits were trading witticisms as a spectator sport because it was that good. They were that on fire and there was … Read more
I have to say,
I have to say, that’s pretty typical for artists, kind of embarrassingly typical for artists that everything is all about selection. David Salle