Photo by Alex Remnick, courtesy Thames & Hudson

"New Yorker" art critic Peter Schjeldahl

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I guess what I object to is the implication that education is preparation for something, like you prepare to be a doctor. You don’t prepare to love art. I mean, why would you, in a busy world? And if you love it, if you have a proclivity for it — and not everybody does, and good luck to everybody — you’re going to want information. But you’re going to want it because of your experience, not in order to have the experience. It’s like anything else that exists purely because humans enjoy it. You don’t read the chemical content of candy before you eat it.

This is true, but I think one thing that you do a good job of is providing context. In your review of “© Murakami,” for instance, I appreciated that you said very honestly that you didn’t like it and you didn’t completely get it, but you also put that in the context of not being completely familiar with manga and Japanese culture. It seems like you feel a need to contextualize your opinions.

I think it’s a matter of responsibility to the reader. You position yourself in relation to the work — like, if you happen to be married to the artist, you don’t keep that a secret. Otherwise, there’s a sort of classic idea of the critic as a voice out of a cloud, a pocket Jehovah, which I plainly have no use for.

How do you choose which shows to review?

Well, often it’s sort of obvious — the big shows. I don’t write as frequently as I did for the Voice. I regret not doing more gallery shows.

If there’s ever a smaller show that you really want to review, can you fight for it?

Well, I've done that, though I want to write about what most people want to read about. If I have a criterion [for what shows to review] it’s: What will make the better piece of writing? I think it’s instinct. I want to make something for people to read.

Do you read other critics?

Yes, certain ones, and to keep up, but not too closely. My pal Dave Hickey, I love everything he writes. I read him for pleasure.

There’s a famous quote that I’ve heard, I don’t know who said it, that writing about art is like dancing about architecture.

Well, it is a challenge; try writing about music. The thing is, there’s something really easy about art, which is that it holds still. Almost everything else we think of as an art unfolds in time. The task of description is an essential operation of art criticism, and it’s the thing I work hardest at and that I want to go by the quickest. I want to make it seem really easy and transparent.

But at the end of the day, you think that there is a value to writing criticism? Do you think it contributes something, and that’s why you do it?

I do it because it’s what I do. It’s what I get paid for, and people seem to like it. I think anybody is ahead in life if they adopt an attitude of humility about what they do... You do it the best you can, and the world has use for it or it doesn’t.

Do you own any art?

Oh yeah. Back in the old days it was normal for artists to give artwork to poets, who had no money; artists had a little money. I’ve got a couple of little things by de Kooning and Bruce Nauman, and other treasures.

But now the art market has expanded in this enormous and expensive way…

Yes, I think one of the big lucky things about my career is that for about the first fifteen years of it I was relatively nobody as a critic, because I was identified as a poet. So I got to hang out with artists without any manipulation or self-consciousness: just Peter the poet. And it was a profound education. Now it’s hard because of the pressure of competition and money, and because I’ve moved very far up the food chain.

Do you ever miss writing poetry?

No, not really. That trickled out well over 25 years ago.

What is your favorite show that you’ve seen so far this year?

Courbet at the Met — it’s just astounding.