Kundalini's Daughter

It is a leafy autumn afternoon in the backcountry of Greenwich where the mansions are hidden from view by the burnished foliage. I am on assignment at a society fundraising event, an afternoon tea in a sparkling new McMansion with high ceilings and very old art. The dining room table is set with cherry tarts, strawberries dipped in chocolate, ladyfingers and other mouth-watering delights nearly untouched by the guests. I wish I brought a bigger handbag. There is one man in the room and he is dressed in jeans. “Look at this spread,” he says nodding towards the feast while looking at me. I recognize him. He is Jerry Saltz, the reason why we are here. The critic is giving a slide show presentation on pace setters in the New York arts scene. His talk has a provocative title: The Good, the Bad and the Really Bad – A Critic Looks at Contemporary Art. Jerry is an amiable and unpretentious fellow with a big personality that inflames his position at the center of the social provocations and intrigues of the art world. He is one half of a power couple. His wife is Roberta Smith, a critic at The New York Times. As the female audience is taking their seats, I claim an armchair on the side of the room and introduce myself to the speaker while recalling that we recently were introduced on a Saturday afternoon in Chelsea. He smiles broadly, expressing the delight of discovering someone from his world in an incongruous setting chock full of ladies who do lunch to get out of the house. “You wanted to know where to get some tea," he says. “What a good memory,” I reply. “You meet so many people.” “Well, so do you,” he says. He leans forward, perhaps to scrutinize my attire – a paneled wool skirt and hot pink silk jacket with an attached boa – Greenwich by way of Beverly Hills. “What are you doing here?” “I am on assignment for the local newspaper.” I raise my pocket recorder and ask if he minds if I tape his talk. “Go ahead,” he replies. I take a seat near the entrance in an armchair facing the audience. Jerry begins by telling us that he was trained as an artist. “Do you still create objects?” I ask from the sidelines. “I don’t make art anymore and that was a difficult transition. I moved to New York to get rich and famous with all of my friends and I thought great…I’ll get to have sex and be invited to parties. And then, I became an art critic. I thought I could have the same. No. HUGE ERROR if that was your interest. I thought, OK, I can have relationships, but the truth is you can’t because if you are an artist and we sleep together…boy or girl, it doesn’t matter. If we do, I lose the one thing that I am actually in the biz for, which is credibility.” I am inwardly cringing at this comment while I struggle to maintain an impassive expression. “I write for the Village Voice. You could say that I have power…but I would like to say that when the Voice fires me or I quit, that I do so with my integrity. But if I am out there all the time. It is fun. It is fabulous. And I don’t disapprove of anybody out there doing that. It’s like whatever…I don’t care. If that is your rule and your job, you do your rule. But I can’t because they could always go – and you know why he wrote about this one or not! You know what he is doing there and he is friends with this one and used to live with that one. So, the fun part is out. Money? Forget money! And the final thing Freud said that artists want pretty lovers, money and immortality. Let me ask you, name me a famous art critic.”