- David Salle (1994)Our PickEdited by David Whitney and Lisa Liebman
- David Salle (1991)By George Trow
- David Salle (1998)Our PickBy David Salle and Massimo Audiello
- SALLE (1987)By Peter Schjeldahl
Important Art by David Salle
Brother Animal (1983)
This painting showcases Salle's desire to present various images that come together to inspire multiple readings. In it we see two distinct visual frames: on the right, a couple rendered in deep blue can be seen in the bedroom. The man looks over his shoulder at a woman, who looks away, a stern expression on her face. On the left appears a large-scale rendering of a vital organ - perhaps a brain, liver, or kidney - on coarse brown upholstery fabric. Alongside the woman's palpable, strong emotion, the disembodied organ seems to hint toward an imminent crisis, or looming major decision. Judging from the evident detachment between the man and the woman, it could be a problem within their relationship that one - or both - of them is choosing to ignore.
Layered over the image of the couple are two legless chairs, a pink sketch of what appears to be an apartment complex, and a pair of clowns in the white wedge toward the center of the canvas. These hovering objects might symbolically represent the couple's memories or thoughts made visible. Alternatively, the several varieties of broken or defective pairs surrounding the couple may underscore the fact that their relationship seems to be on very shaky ground.
A number of critics have observed that Salle's paintings merge Pop art's morbid fascination with consumer culture and the heroic scale and abstruse nature of Abstract Expressionism. This is very much the case in this painting, in which various images - each intelligible enough alone - come together to form a whole with a more elusive and subjective meaning.
Tennyson (1983)
In Tennyson, we find the early onset of Salle's exploration into the female body as a provocative source of both guilt and glee within our communal psyche. A sensual nude lays on a sienna-colored plain reminiscent of a sun soaked beach, her back coyly turned toward the viewer. The monochromatic hue conjures soft porn images of yesteryear. The name of the noted Victorian poet spans the center in block letters of which only the first two are colored: "te," which when said aloud brings to mind the first syllable of an embarrassed giggle. A rust colored mark bisects the top half of the buttocks, as if evidence of a voyeur's presence in a water stain dropped accidentally on the pages of a dirty magazine. Swatches of turquoise and pink in the upper left hand corner provide an unassuming frame for a three dimensional ear carved of wood and affixed to the canvas. The ear, perhaps a rebus, asks us to "Listen." But listen to what? It may be the way we glorify the female body within the annals of desire, the way eroticism is something we shamefully keep secret, or the sounds of our childlike innocence as we awkwardly navigate the wondrous world of fantasy and desire.
This painting is a prime example of Salle's use of pastiche, in which he appropriates styles that imitate another work, artist, or period. We can see the jagged brushstrokes of Clyfford Still, the clunky assemblage of Robert Rauschenberg, the iconic lettering of Ed Ruscha, and the realistic, one-toned figuration of the human body as per Lucien Freud. This nod to other artists invites us to reflect not only on the individual painting's presumed meaning but also on the overall conversation perpetuated in the art world at large.
Sextant in Dogtown (1987)
In this piece, Salle combines an eclectic mix of found images from a variety of sources, painted in his own hand, though nevertheless reminiscent of a collage. Although constructed within filmstrip-like boxes that hint at an overall performance, there is no clear evidence of a "story." As in much of his work, the viewer is left to draw his or her own connections, in no prescribed order, and thus surmise a meaning.
Yet the curious addition of "Dogtown" in the title asks the viewer to collude in a type of metaphorical association that Salle has admitted is more relevant to his work than literal interpretation. On top we see colorful male figures in garments reminiscent of circus costumes, indicating that they are performers of some kind. This sits in direct opposition to the black-and-white lingerie clad women of the lower panels. The figure at the top right operates an old oceanic navigation device known as a sextant, which was used as a sighting mechanism that allowed a shipman to take altitudes in navigation. Therefore, the female bodies in the lower frames, which are positioned in a sort of striptease as spectacles to be observed, might hint at the many ways we navigate through our societal perspectives of women within society as objects of disjointed desire. The act of seeing, or not seeing, becomes an important theme of the work with an implicit focus on how we watch led by the invisible orchestrations of a media-saturated society as dogs upon a leash. This move into a more critical commentary might be seen as a direct reaction to the more conspicuous consumption of America in the 1980s.
Influences and Connections

- Ross Bleckner
- Mary Boone
- Jeff Koons
- Julian Schnabel
- Robert Longo
- Postmodernism
- Collage
- Neo-Expressionism
- Appropriation Art