Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light, 100 Art Writings 1988–2018

100 key writings from spanning across thirty years of the acclaimed New Yorker art critic’s career.

Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light collects 100 key writings by Peter Schjeldahl spinning thirty years, his last twenty as the art critic of the New Yorker. In this unfailingly lucid guide to an art world in constant, dramatic flux, Schjeldahl addresses new artists and Old Masters with the same pitch of acuity, empathy, and wit. No other writer enhances the reader’s experience of art in precise, jargon-free prose as he does, with reviews that are as much essay as criticism.

Implicit in Schjeldahl’s role as a frontline critic is a focus on artists, issues, and events of urgent relevance to the culture at large. Holt, Cold, Heavy, Light tells us why we still care about Rembrandt and Mantegna, Matisse and Picasso; takes the measure of contemporaries Basquiat and Holzer, Polke and Kiefer, Sherman and Koons; introduces us to newcomers Kerry James Marshall and Laura Owens; and salutes rediscoveries of Florine Stettheimer, Hélio Oiticica, and Peter Hujar. The book provides essential knowledge to anyone curious about the character, quality, and consequence of art today.

The pieces in Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light were compiled and arranged by the critic Jarrett Earnest, with an ear attuned to Schjeldahl’s range of voices. “The effect of reading him in depth, over time,” Earnest says in his introduction, “is like that of great literature. You come away not only with new insights and ideas, but with a feeling of having been granted an extra life.”

“This is a rapturous read for art lovers and all who appreciate dynamic critical essays,” —Booklist

“Bruce is no longer The Boss; Peter Schjeldahl is! Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light is the apex of artistic criticism and commentary,” —Steve Martin

“The great New Yorker art critic writes like an angel about everyone from Vermeer to Picasso, Donatello to Andy Warhol, in beautiful, enjoyable, accessible essays across 30 years,” —Philadelphia Inquirer