David Salle (born September 28, 1952; last name pronounced "Sally") is an American Postmodern painter, printmaker, photographer, and stage designer.
David Salle was born to Russian Jewish immigrant parents on September 28, 1952, in Norman, Oklahoma, but grew up in Wichita, Kansas.
[1] Around the same time, Salle was hired by the American Ballet Theatre to design set and costumes for dancer and choreographer Karole Armitage.
[3] In 1995, Salle made his Hollywood directorial debut with Search and Destroy, starring Christopher Walken and Griffin Dunne and produced by Martin Scorsese.
[5] Imagery he uses includes items from popular culture, such as Donald Duck, and pieces from art history, such as parts from a Caravaggio painting.
Salle's work was also featured in The Pictures Generation, an exhibition curated by Douglas Eklund at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
His work was shown among a number of other contemporary artists including Richard Prince, Sherrie Levine, Cindy Sherman, Nancy Dwyer, Robert Longo, Thomas Lawson, Charles Clough, and Michael Zwack.
[6] During the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-21, Salle has painted a series of works called Tree of Life which reference Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, and The New Yorker cartoonist Peter Arno (1904-1968).
[12] Salle worked closely with fellow contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, and John Baldessari in creating this collection.
According to Dwight Garner:[13] Mr. Salle’s mission in How to See is to seize art back from the sort of critics who treat each painting “as a position paper, with the artist cast as a kind of philosopher manqué.” Mr. Salle is more interested in talking about nuts and bolts, about what makes contemporary paintings tick.Salle's writing is much like his artistic style, witty and intriguing.
[6] Another point of contention was Salle's use of pornographic images of women, which some critics found a form of voyeurism or downright provocation, particularly to the feminist movement.