This article originally appeared in Jerry Saltz’s Favorite Things, a new limited-run, subscriber-only newsletter in which our chief art critic writes about the cultural products that have shaped his perspective. To read the full series, click here to sign up for the newsletter.
When it comes to Instagram, I was a last adopter. I had heard of it but was too digitally primitive to understand what it was. I had been all about Facebook (where I have 99,628 followers) and Twitter (560,000). A student signed me up for Instagram in 2012, gave me a user name and a password, and said, “Here.”
One day, on Varick Street, across the street from the old offices of New York Magazine, I got a parking ticket. I took a picture and posted it with a complaining caption. I didn’t think about it for days. When I looked at it again, there were scores of comments. They were both hysterical and snippy, people making jokes and telling me what an idiot I was for getting the ticket.
That’s when I knew: I got this Instagram and I learned how to make it talk.
My whole life, I have disliked the model of art criticism as a pyramid. It has been a top-down practice of a few people speaking, often in language no one can understand. Instagram inverts that model. I don’t delude myself into thinking that Instagram is a venue for traditional art criticism. Rather, it is a hybrid of opinion, criticism, diary, humor, and a little trolling. Do I seek to call attention to myself? Sometimes yes. Other times no. I have my own idiot publishing empire that makes no money and is dependent on nothing but me posting.
I am not sure who does my posting. My Instagram self is like my second self, far more gregarious and out there than my “real” self. My life is beautiful but very limited. I see 25 to 30 art shows a week. Then I go home and worry about writing about them. Then I have to write. I do not go out, except for coffee with a pal or two; I do not go to dinners. I do not cross water for art fairs. Yet my Instagram self can “be” with others without leaving the house. And my Instagram self can say things my real self cannot because my Instagram self’s thoughts fly from my fingers without hesitation.
Usually, I wake up, make a big cup of coffee, and scroll Instagram for a half-hour or so. I enter the group mind. I get ideas, have opinions, stand corrected, get offended, get jealous, laugh. Then I get an idea. I post some pictures with what I call a “thumb essay” (it rhymes with dumb): a short caption tapped out in a state of strange delirium and rushed consciousness. I click post. I do this one or two more times. By then, my writing demons have been lulled. I make another cup of coffee and sit down to try to work.
I do not look at my Instagram again until that night — at which point I seem to travel around a whole world of collective consciousness as I read the comments on my posts. Sometimes commenters tear me a new one. This has made my Instagram audience my greatest teacher. Without this feedback, Instagram is nothing to me. I read every comment on every thread. I am a firm believer in being “ratioed” — I want the comments. They have given me some of my fullest hours.
I have been spanked for using Instagram so much. It is sure to be in the first lines of my obituary, “Instagram critic.” But Instagram changed my life. Every time I take a walk, I am stopped by strangers who feel a need to say hello or to talk about art. I love this.
The platform is changing. It is increasingly dominated by reels, short films that produce a dopamine rush that discourages reading, writing, or even thinking. I enjoy reels (I am even experimenting with one-minute videos of me running around an art show speaking as loud as I can into my iPhone), but reels are a form of sleepwalking. They are very different from the silent pictures with written captions.
I imagine Instagram will soon become antiquated and be as hard to access as MySpace. Instagram in the last hours of its golden age is a very specific form of communication and interior transport. I try to post every day. It is sometimes exhausting. But as an older art critic, it’s all I know how to do. I cannot write if writing is without you.
Give These Accounts a Follow
- amysedaris: Sedaris owns the internet with her insane posts.
- maklelan: This scholar of the Bible debunks right-wing Evangelists and religious zealots.
- cardmagicbyjason: By far the best card tricks on-camera you will ever see.
- tammymaealbertson: For some very good naughty fun.
- mepaintsme, folesdog, petershear, and peleckaitealdona: These four accounts regularly post remarkable lesser-known paintings.
- francis_bourgeois43: The sheer joy of watching this English trainspotter.
- matthew.collings_: An art critic I wish I could write like. His observations are always challenging. He posts his own pretty good work, too, with tremendous captions.
- conor_sketches: Fantastic Irish comedian doing parodies of sports figures.
- matthewhiggs2015: An excellent source on all things cultural: bands he sees, books he buys.
- ashcan_daily: One of my fave sites because it seems to loosely prove one of my secret thoughts: There’s no such thing as a bad Ashcan painting.
- artbutmakeitsports: What art and sports lover could not feel the frisson of fun that this savant inspires with his comparisons between the two disciplines?
- alto_basso_medioevo: Gorgeous frescos and churches to die for.
- jackwatteau: Posts some of the best, most squirrely-strange pictures out there.
- walterrobinsonstudio: Another critic who I wish I could write like and whose captions are mysterious but wonderful. A good artist, too.
- sciepro.official: Gorgeous videos of how the body works from the inside in seductive color and accuracy.
- traceyeminstudio: The most powerful artist on Instagram posts deeply moving accounts of her life and art. A must-follow.
- ohthattimdavis: A hell of a photographer. I seem to like about every odd image he posts.
- onwasow: A prophet of anonymous images.
- madison_humphrey: I can’t get enough of her incredibly funny comedic riffs.
- rimanellidavid: His fine-tuned aesthetic sensibility is second to none. Sometimes he will post more than a dozen images in a day. All of them spot on.
- joannervej, breakingthegaycodeinart, and liliums_compendium: These accounts embody an enticing homoeroticism and aesthetic.
- dimestoreradio and dusttodigital: These two tremendous accounts are a fantastic source of roots music and other odd ways of making sounds. Follow them and thank me later.
- kathygriffin: Long videos of her act and commentary. A brilliantly funny, always vulnerable anti-MAGA star comedian. (We went to the same high school in the suburbs of Chicago.)
- the_line_up: This photographer stops people on the New York street and asks them to stand against a wall, somehow always capturing their style and personality.
- aarneanton: A great outsider art dealer who posts super-great stuff all the time.
- calebwsimpson: My apartment tour with him got over 19 million views.
- keithartnature: A fantastic eye who posts some of the best close-ups of art anywhere.
- whywelook: In the spring of 2020, Marvin Heiferman lost his husband, likely to COVID. This account is about his ongoing journey into missing him, remembering him, loving him.
- trucker__views and crashdashes: As a former long-distance truck driver, I follow a lot of trucker and non-fatal accident accounts. Try these two.
- ozzymanreviews: A hilarious Australian poster who narrates found videos.
- terriblyawesomecovers: Posts videos of bands no one has ever heard of. Priceless.
- whiting_jesse: His homoerotic photo dumps are fantastic.
- citizen_ck: A great source of vintage TV and movie clips.
- girlsonprn: The best sex-and-laughs podcasters in the business.
- paulstamets: He knows everything there is to know about our fungal neighbors, the mushrooms.
- salarytransparentstreet: Let this account amaze you with its forthright honesty about what all of us might be earning.
- will_lord_prehistoric_survival: A man in England making and using prehistoric tools to make other prehistoric tools. A real fave.
- wheelchair_rapunzel: This wheelchair-using creator regularly posts on the disabled life in a deeply ableist society.
- burningman: We all hate it but need to see it, so you might as well spy on it here.
- paris.starn: A confection-maker who makes you wish she would send her confections to you.
- fille_delespace: Wowser posts on outer space that explain astrophysics.
- veragirivi: A fantastic self-taught Italian artist.
- headonfirepod: This excellent author and poet posts fast and super-interesting takes on everything.
- f1: The best sport on earth. Period.
- denniskardon: This painter posts pics of other people’s work and adds intriguing commentary.
- defdylan: For my money, the best Dylan podcast. Also posts fanboy pics of Dylan and keeps you updated on this holy man’s activities.
- scott_rothkopf: Yes, he is the big honcho at the Whitney, but that hasn’t stopped him from posting great videos and images of things he sees in other museums and galleries.
- thegreatwomenartists: One of the best Instagram accounts and podcasts devoted to art history.
- damienhirst: The artist everyone loves to hate was once great and still makes fascinating (and sometimes horrendous) videos of his studio.
- martinlherbert: Berlin-based art critic with a wry sense of humor.
- kennyschachter: Mi amigo, an artist and writer who posts some of the most sly videos and pics.
- lincolnproject.us, meidastouch, ananavarrofl, redeye.republic, other98, harryshannon, and jjmacdad: These seven accounts can get you through the many dark nights of the 2024 election.
- cynthiarowley and themarcjacobs: Pick two designers and follow them. Rowley and Jacobs are regular posters, each interesting.
- birdieslovesme: Here is a trans-friendly lingerie shop by my old Kansas City pal Peregrine Honig.
- yorkshire.fossils: In an alternate life, I would have lived here and cracked open random rocks to find 185 million-year-old fossils.
- fifthavenuehearing: Finally, a public-service announcement for anyone who may find themselves saying “What?” more often than they used to. My audiologist will fix and heal you. Get your hearing checked. It only gets worse and can affect cognitive abilities.
- gemmacorrell: A great illustrator specializing in feminist and female content.
- sew_through_time: A woman dresses in a different era’s clothes, all the while narrating the styles and ideas of the time.
- miniaturwunderland: A site based in Hamburg that features its gigantic layout of a teeny miniature world — including Monaco’s F1 race track.
- angiepontani: My “Design Hunting” pal, Wendy Goodman, discovered this incredible burlesque dancer who lives in an amazing home in South Brooklyn.
- prehistoric.dinosaur.hub: Short animated clips of dinosaurs that just make you wish that there could be a 24-hour channel that only shows stuff like this.
- sternshow: These short clips convinced me that Howard Stern is one of the greatest interviewers alive.
- laurencella: This super-fast-talking “teacher” gives historical lectures on Henry VIII, the discovery of America, the Roman Empire, and the Civil War, all in the lingo of Gen Z, often while sipping from an iced coffee through a straw. Terrifying!
- karentangmd: A doctor and writer who tells it like it is about women’s health.
