Sense

I thought this part that David Salle said, “I can easily visualize her as a dominatrix. There was some weird sexual energy there, unexpressed. I immediately became defensive” added up because he is also someone who is “drawn to the world of popular criticism.” I wondered how can he immediately figure out someone’s personality just from his/her physical appearance. Then I realized that he, and other artists, obsess over bad reviews and can sometimes influence the way they work. For instance, Salle’s sudden sensitivity to Malcolm bringing up how he produces fastidious works under a short period of time only to find out that he was criticized for it from an earlier critic.

Nonsense

Salle’s comment on how, “He hated Paris, with its ‘heavily subsidized aestheticism.’ He disliked his French dealer,” was strange to me since he rose to fame and fortune from selling his art that appealed to the young artists/collectors of the 1980s. Would he be considered a hippocrite for criticising how French artists make art that garners a fortune? I also thought it was kind of nonsensical for him to dislike his French dealer since that person is the one that directly helps him make money so that he can afford all the nice furnishings/purchase that were described in the various interviews.