Do you believe emotion or technique is more relatable to an audience?

Also, do you believe all choreographic elements (repetition, form, style) are needed to have successful choreography?

The author talks about all of the aspects a person needs to be a good dancer. He then goes on to say that there is no such thing as bad dancing, unless it hurts the dancer’s body. These two statements are contradicting, which one is true?

What’s the balance between the emotional and physical aspects of dance?  If there’s a dancer with superb technique but no feeling, is that better than someone who lacks technique but displays stark, raw emotion?

It seems that Saltz is commercializing art, which makes it seem very unimportant. The point of the Chelsea galleries is for the public to have a chance to see the mass of art that is there.  However, at one point Saltz says that it’s ok for your gallery to “be visible to just enough people with money” even if it is not visible to the general public.  How is this fair to artists? Doesn’t this contradict the very notion of art?

Jerry Saltz states that there is bad art at the Chelsea Galleries and the goes off on tangent as to why having “bad art” is not such a bad thing after all.  Using percentages he describes how much good art there is and how much bad art there is.  My question is:  How is it possible to measure what the general public feels about art if such a small part of the population that goes to view art is actually qualified to judge it as good or bad?

Saltz shares that “Even a powerhouse like Barbara Gladstone went through years of showing iffy and even awful artists (ahem, moi). It’s just that few people saw her do this (fortunately for me).” This detail about the authors life brings me to ask if maybe his failure in art is why he points out “bad” art so much? Is the author speaking out of spite due to his failure when it came to becoming an artist? Do you think that the time (2006) that this article was written had any influence on his outlook on art at the time?

Saltz talks about how the majority “bad” art weeds out the “good” art, leading to a sort of “survival of the fittest” art (Darwinism). From which perspective if he speaking of when he says good art and bad art? How can he, even if he draws from statistics, be trusted with what good and bad art is when there is no universal consensus for it, or anything for that matter?

First of all, I am truly confused as to what Saltz is defining as “bad art”. I understand that many people are asking the same question, but with the amount of focus that he puts on this idea of bad art, it’s hard to avoid this idea. Secondly, Saltz states that “…something that is often overlooked and quite underappreciated is that bad art tells you as much as good art.” I find this to be extremely interesting, because then wouldn’t that make it good art because it has a message/narrative and contains a learning experience?

Note/discussion worthy quote: “The artworld is continually spawning huge amounts of art so that a minuscule portion will survive. You begin to see art as a life force unto itself, seeking to guarantee its survival. An art scene can only be an art scene if it’s big and diverse enough to support this high ratio of bad shows.”

Saltz says that “bad art tells you as much as much as good art does,” but how do you classify which art is bad? If you can get some meaning out of the artwork, couldn’t it be considered good art? And if the ratio of good art to bad art is fairly constant to other cities, why is Chelsea seen as having more bad art than the rest of the art cities such as Berlin and Los Angeles? Also, if the art scene expanded to other neighborhoods in New York, would Chelsea still hold its place as the art center of New York or could another neighborhood replace it as the art scene?

The author states that there is many bad art in Chelsea but that is positive because it is crucial to have bad art to bring out the good art. He states, “About 85 percent is not good; 15 percent might be good”. How could the author make a statement with a statistic about art?  How can one define good art and bad art?