Peter Schjeldahl: Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light: 100 Art Writings 1988-2018

Peter Schjeldahl was the long time art critic at The New Yorker (technically, crazily, I can call him a former coworker for a 3 year overlap). I picked up this book at a Topos Bookstore in Ridgewood last year, in an effort to learn more about the language of art and boy was I in for a good lesson.

This book compiles a bunch of reviews from Schjeldahl's time at the Village Voice and Seven Days as well as TNY. His way of writing is deliberate yet poetic. He masterfully weaves together broader cultural and historical context with the personal experience of standing in a room with a piece of art. And his use of analogies. Probably my most highlighted book because there are so many sentences that I read thrice to fully appreciate the artful use of language.