"My Anxiety" With Legendary Art Critic Jerry Saltz

**Morra Aarons-Mele** (0:00)
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You know when you've read something and your heart stops and you just simply must talk about what you've read? I felt that when I read an article by the Pulitzer Prize winning art critic Jerry Saltz in New York Magazine.
And trust me, even if you've never cared to read a piece of art criticism in your life, Jerry's piece My Appetites will get you there. Jerry wrote about his work, his anxiety, his trauma, the way he eats and what he loves. He wrote it early during the coronavirus pandemic, deep in the midst of grief and fear and loneliness. And I started by asking him how he's doing since the piece came out.

**Jerry Saltz** (2:39)
I am speaking to you in my 188th day of quarantine.
I'm now in my office in lower Manhattan, New York City. My wife and I have spent almost that entire time pretty quarantined up in a rented house in Connecticut. But it's great to be back in New York. It's almost empty. Everything is quiet. Everything is clean. I've never seen the subway so clean. And I'm going to galleries and museums. It's really great to be back.

**Morra Aarons-Mele** (3:17)
Oh, that's so nice. You wrote this article, My Appetites, at the start of the pandemic, which, I mean, it kind of feels like that was yesterday, but also a century ago. And the article, it struck a nerve with so many people. Your premise of the article was food, and your sort of weird habits, very almost strict but not rigid habits around food, and all of the anxieties and complexities that go with your daily regimen.
And of course, food is such a way in to our feelings in every way. But I was wondering if you think that your relationship with your food habits and how you manage them is really about anxiety or is it about something else?

**Jerry Saltz** (4:11)
Well, this is exactly how that essay began, Morra. Right after we all went into quarantine in the Northeast, at least, my editor sent me an email that echoed a lot of comments I was getting on my social media where I'm very active. And all it said is, what are you eating? Exclamation point. And I thought, why is everyone asking me this?
I asked him back and he said, well, and then I got into talking about what he was referring to, which is, I don't think I have any food issues until after writing this piece. That I do not cook. My wife does not cook. I am a full-time art critic for New York Magazine. My wife is the co-chief, art critic for New York Times. We don't have kids. I hate kids. She hates them. We're godmother and godfather to a lot of children and I love them. And I give them money whenever I see them to make them like me. And what we do is see about 50 to 75 shows a week in New York. And then we come home and we both write. And we go to hell while writing. The hell part we'll get into. But the heaven is deciding not to worry about eating or cooking at all. And so what we do more, and I'm sorry to go on because I've been so quarantined. I'm just babbling. Tom, what we do is I go to a local like deli or grocery store and buy about 20 already grilled chicken breasts.