Peter Schjeldahl on Good Cheer During Bad Times

Summary

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

Episode: Peter Schjeldahl on Good Cheer During Bad Times
Host: Dorothy Wickenden
Guest: Peter Schjeldahl
Date: December 19, 2019

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Episode Overview

In this special year-end episode, Dorothy Wickenden forgoes the usual focus on politics to converse with Peter Schjeldahl, longtime art critic for The New Yorker. Recently diagnosed with terminal cancer, Schjeldahl reflects on his life, the joys of art, and why finding beauty and meaning matters even in times of personal and political crisis. The discussion weaves through Schjeldahl’s personal history, philosophy on art, recent health developments, and his enduring optimism.

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Key Discussion Points

Reflections on Life and Illness

• Facing Mortality with Gratitude
  • Schjeldahl discusses his essay "The Art of Dying," exploring his cancer diagnosis, the improvisational nature of facing terminal illness, and his outlook:
    • “Dying. It's my turn to survey life from as far-now-near shore. The extra months are a luxury that I hope to put to good use, like a camera situated nowhere and taking in every last detail of the pulsating world.” (Peter Schjeldahl, 02:28)
  • Despite the severity of his diagnosis, Schjeldahl describes unexpected improvements due to immunotherapy:
    • “It's weird to have mixed feelings about the fact that the treatment I’ve been given, not chemo, but immunotherapy, against the odds, seems to be working very well. It's not a cure, but my prospects are much improved and I feel much better.” (Peter Schjeldahl, 03:33)

Finding Good Cheer During Bad Times

• Cultural and Historical Perspective

  • Schjeldahl downplays the current sense of political despair, suggesting that turmoil is a recurring feature of American life:
    • “Think back, you know, when has the world not been in crisis? You know, we got through the Civil War and Jim Crow and the Depression.” (Peter Schjeldahl, 03:01)
  • He encourages acceptance and perspective, rather than catastrophizing, about the present.

• Moments of Serenity and Beauty

  • Schjeldahl recounts learning of his diagnosis during a drive through the Catskills, accompanied by Patsy Cline on the radio—underscoring the power of art and nature:
    • “The beauty of the Catskills, the absolute perfection, the platonic quality of Patsy Cline, the model for any kind of art.” (Peter Schjeldahl, 04:25)

Origin Story: From Minnesota to New York and Paris

• Early Writing Life

  • Schjeldahl was drawn to words from an early age, but felt unheard—a trait he finds common in writers.
  • He dropped out of Carleton College for a journalism job in Jersey City, recounted with characteristic humor:
    • “You don't know? You don't have a place to stay, do you? Oh hell, take a desk.” (Peter Schjeldahl recalls a hiring editor, 06:58)

• Eye-Opening Experiences in Journalism

  • His first brush with corruption: refused a $50 bribe, much to the editor's consternation:
    • “But I'm a Midwestern country Lutheran kid. So I just, I said, oh, thank you, but I can't take this… I was innocent of the fact that, you know, if you don’t accept being bought by him, it might be dangerous.” (Peter Schjeldahl, 08:11)

• A Life-Changing Encounter with Art

  • A visit to Piero della Francesca’s fresco of the pregnant Madonna triggered an epiphany about the power of art:
    • “It was just like whatever I was going to do in my life was going to have something to do with that. And I didn't. I'm still working on what that is.” (Peter Schjeldahl, 09:14)

Becoming an Art Critic

• The Journey to Criticism

  • Schjeldahl confesses to beginning art criticism with "pristine ignorance," learning on the job and gradually accruing genuine expertise.
  • He notes that talk and writing about art are ways of ratifying one's unique, often solitary, aesthetic experiences:
    • “To have an aesthetic experience is inward and it’s very lonely and it can seem pretty wacky... the social function of criticism... is to ratify and perhaps in some cases to correct our subjective experience.” (Peter Schjeldahl, 16:12-17:23)

• On the Nuances of Taste

  • Schjeldahl feels the aesthetic can be found everywhere, not just constrained to galleries:
    • “Stalking the aesthetic everywhere... the aesthetic isn't bounded by art which merely concentrates it for efficient consumption. If you can’t put a mental frame around it... you'll respond to art only sluggishly.” (Peter Schjeldahl paraphrased by Dorothy Wickenden, 15:35)
  • He jokes about giving advice: “It's like, how do you learn to swim? Well, get in the water.” (Peter Schjeldahl, 16:12)

• The Value of Bad Art

  • “Bad art is much more instructive than good art. You learn more because when something falls apart, you can see what it's made of.” (Peter Schjeldahl, 17:30)

Art, Politics, and Social Change

• Art as a Political Act
  • Schjeldahl discusses Amy Sherald's portrait of Michelle Obama as an example of art changing context and refreshing tradition:
    • “Somebody like Sherald... applying [portraiture] to upper middle class black people... it refreshes the tradition. It makes it new. Art doesn’t change... but we change.” (Peter Schjeldahl, 15:05)
  • He remarks that race, as a subject, “applies as a condition and a cause for resetting the mainstream of Western art.”

Looking Ahead

• Next Project
  • Schjeldahl hints at an upcoming essay about visiting the Prado Museum in Madrid at Steve Martin’s invitation, embracing opportunities beyond the critical review format.
    • “Steve Martin decided that he needed me to talk to him about Velazquez, so we flew over on a private plane… encouraged to write an essay that’s not a review.” (Peter Schjeldahl, 18:06)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Facing Death and Remaining Present (02:28)

  • “Dying. It's my turn to survey life from as far-now-near shore… like a camera situated nowhere and taking in every last detail of the pulsating world.” — Peter Schjeldahl

• On Art’s Social and Personal Function (16:12)

  • “To have an aesthetic experience is inward and it’s very lonely... the social function of criticism... is to ratify and perhaps in some cases to correct our subjective experience.” — Peter Schjeldahl

• On Corruption and Naivete in Journalism (08:11)

  • “I was innocent of the fact that if you don't accept being bought by [a corrupt official], it might be dangerous.” — Peter Schjeldahl

• On Advice for Enjoying Art (16:12)

  • “How do you learn to swim? Well, get in the water. I mean, do you like art or not?” — Peter Schjeldahl

• On the Insightfulness of Bad Art (17:30)

  • “Bad art is much more instructive than good art. You learn more because when something falls apart, you can see what it's made of.” — Peter Schjeldahl

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 02:28 – Schjeldahl reads from "The Art of Dying" and discusses facing terminal illness
• 03:33 – Updates on his health and reflects on positive medical news
• 04:25 – The power of beauty and Patsy Cline, even amid crisis
• 06:13 – Early writing life and feeling unheard as a child
• 08:11 – First lessons in city journalism and naïveté confronting corruption
• 09:14 – Mystical experience with Italian art and life direction
• 15:05 – The political meaning of Amy Sherald’s portraiture
• 16:12–17:23 – How to develop taste and the value of sharing art experiences
• 18:06 – Sneak preview of a forthcoming essay on Velazquez

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Summary

This warm, contemplative conversation moves well beyond politics into reflections on mortality, art, joy, and the meaning to be found amid uncertainty. Schjeldahl’s unique blend of humility, humor, and deep aesthetic sensitivity invites listeners to slow down, notice beauty everywhere, and accept the complexities of life—good, bad, and in-between. The episode offers a fitting close to a turbulent year, radiating hope and clarity for what lies ahead.

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For more analysis and stories, visit newyorker.com or subscribe to The Political Scene.

Transcript

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[Dorothy Wickenden]

This is the Political Scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and guests about Politics. It's Thursday, December 19th. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of the New Yorker. I wanted to do something different for this podcast, which is the final political scene of 2019. Our guest, Peter Schjeldahl, is not a political writer or a politician. He's been the New Yorker's art critic since 1998, bringing our readers relief from relentlessly grim headlines with his gorgeous, transporting essays about painters, sculptors, photographers, performance artists. Last week, when the country was caught up in the impending impeachment of the president and reading about wars and natural disasters around the world, Peter published a piece in the magazine about his own existential crisis called the Art of Dying. A few months ago, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. But it is not a story about despair. It's a celebration of what often goes unnoticed by the rest of us as we go about our lives. It's an inspiring way to think about the end of one traumatic year and the beginning of what is sure to be another, Peter writes.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Dying. It's My turn to survey life from as far now near shore. The extra months are a luxury that I hope to put to good use, like a camera situated nowhere and taking in every last detail of the pulsating world.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Well, welcome, Peter. I'm so pleased to have you on the program.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Thank you.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

So many people in the country right now share a sense of despair about the dystopia we all seem to be living in.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

I think they're working themselves up.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Why do you think that?

[Peter Schjeldahl]

I think because there's some sort of presumption that things are supposed to be different, probably based on the relative tranquility of history in recent decades. Think back, you know, when has the world not been in crisis? You know, we got through the Civil War and Jim Crow and the Depression.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

And the country was even more divided then.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Yeah, you know, it's. I don't know. Anyway, good luck to everybody. By the way, I think I should insert immediately. It's weird to have mixed feelings about the fact that the treatment I've been given, not chemo, but immunotherapy, against the odds, seems to be working very well. It's not a cure, but my prospects are much improved and I feel much better.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Yes. Everyone here was so excited to hear that, Peter.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Well, yeah, lucky me.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

You got the preliminary word, the bad word, from your doctor by phone as you were driving upstate from New York City. And you write about reaching mile 81 on the new York State Thruway and that the Catskills are coming into view and Patsy Cline comes on the radio.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

First of all, it was a peculiar moment. I had a book out and I might as well. I actually have a narrative reason to mention it here. Hot, cold, heavy light. 100 Art Writings, 1988-2018. And I recorded the audible of it that morning. I had finished after seven days recording it. And I got in my brand new car, blue, incredible blue, and got the word. And the beauty of the. The Catskills, the absolute perfection, the platonic quality of Patsy Cline, the model for any kind of art.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Why is that?

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Because she invests all of her talent and passion in the sound and sense of every word. There is no ego involved. She isn't selling you the song, she is buying the song. And we monitor her doing that and hold our breath.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

I go out walking after midnight out.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

In the moonlight.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

You write, I wanted for nothing. I want for nothing. And I just thought that was kind of a beautiful sentiment.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Searching for you I walk for miles along the highway.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

When you started out your writing life, you Wanted to be a poet. You were a poet. You grew up in Minnesota. Not very happily, as you admit in the piece. How did you get interested in writing?

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Oh, I was. From birth, I don't know, I was just a, I was a word drunk kid, you know, I think I was a chattering kid that nobody ever listened to. That sort of destined, I think no other writers who had that same feeling that they were overflowing with things to say and nobody listened to them.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

And what was your, I've never asked you this before. What was your first published work?

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Oh, gosh, I don't know. Elementary school, high school. I was the, I was the sports editor of my high school paper and I worked summer jobs in journalism.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

And then in 1962, you dropped out of Carleton College for the first time.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Uh huh.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

You drove east for a job interview at the Jersey City Journal. How did that go?

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Well said in my piece, the guy said, okay, where are you staying? And he said, you don't know? You don't have a place to stay, do you? Oh hell, take a desk. It was, it was, ah, the good.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Old days of journalism.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Complete crapshoot. That was the 60s. It was another era.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Well, I think, don't you mention that one of your first stories was about a teamster.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

You had this, well, Tony Provenzano. That was one of my encounters in, you know, as an utterly naive cornfield Midwestern boy in the sewer of Hudson county, where the reporter answered the phone and said, tony Pro's having another press conference. Everybody laughed. I didn't understand. They said, send a kid. This is 1963, when Robert Kennedy was crusading against labor racketeers. And Tony Pro, see the Irishman, he's in it. It's a wonderful movie. It was the teamster boss, who may or may not have been responsible for the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, told a series of obscene jokes about Robert Kennedy. I was ready to take notes.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

And none of the other reporters were taking notes?

[Peter Schjeldahl]

No, no, they were just smoking and laughing. And at the door he shook hands with us and there was suddenly a $50 bill in my hand. That was my salary by my weekly salary, $50. But I'm a Midwestern country Lutheran kid. So I just, I said, oh, thank you, but I can't take this. And he wouldn't take it back. And I put it down. And when I got back to the paper, I was bawled out by the editor who said, I don't know what you said or what you did and I don't want to know. Never do it or say it again. I was innocent of the fact that, you know, if you don't accept being bought by him, it might be dangerous.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Your first education in city life. So you went back to Carleton and then you returned briefly to the Jersey City job, but then went to Paris for a year and lived a kind of impoverished existence there. But you mentioned that you had a life changing encounter in Italy actually with a painting by Piero della Francesca.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Yeah, in Italy and through circles. I was with this American painter who was living there who wanted to educate me and took me. I never studied art, but took me on the back of his Vespa and we did the Piero della Francesca tour from Aresto to San Popolcro and I didn't get it very much, but halfway. There's a little town called Monteroqui and in a cemetery chapel at that point about the size of a tool shed that happened to be open at the time, there is a fresco of the pregnant Madonna, very rare subject. This beautiful pensive young girl, hugely pregnant. And I mean, it's remarkable, saying it was sort of like a secret inside a secret and this kind of easy solemnity that Piero has that no other painter's ever had. I was all, I mean, I don't know, something broke, I mean, I burst into tears. I don't know, I mean, you know, mystical epiphany experiences. It was just like whatever I was going to do in my life was going to have something to do with that. And I didn't. I'm still working on what that is.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

So then I believe I got the chronology right. You went back to Paris and you were introduced to Andy Warhol.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Well, I had been already. I'd been in New York, but I was from Minnesota. And in Minnesota at that point we all understood that Paris was where it was at because our information was 25 years out of date, you know, and that's how New had traveled and I had taken New York for granted and gone to Paris. And so anyways, I Sabin Gallery in Paris in 65. I wanted a show of Andy Warhol's flower paintings, his silk screens, flower paintings. And it was really like somebody kicking open the door to a blast furnace, you know. And I thought, wrong city, you know, get your butt back to New York.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

You say that when you started writing criticism, you did it in almost pristine ignorance. How did you go about educating yourself?

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Well, write about something if you do some immediate research, you know.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

But you learned pretty quickly. You were hired almost immediately as the art critic of the voice.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Well, they did. They liked. Yeah, they liked how I wrote. And I think maybe I had precociously mastered a rhetorical tone which spoke of great funds of knowledge behind it, which was a lie that I had to turn into the truth over a long period of time.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

You wrote in your piece I had a problem besides inexperience, a question of priorities between meeting deadlines and doing lots of drugs. A no brainer in more ways than one. You became a heavy drinker, too. So your life could have gone really badly at that point.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Oh, it did. I mean, it bounced. I don't know, it was. And it was the 60s, and it was sort of understood that behaving badly was a matter of course. And also it was very cheap. I mean, I had an apartment at Avenue b. It was four rooms for 40 bucks a month and roughly four burglaries a year. But all you ever had was a record player and a typewriter, and if you ran down to the street, you could probably buy them back. So, I don't know. I mean, the good parts of life, the bad parts, I mean, it all, it's all just one big story right now for me.

[Katie Drummond]

What the hell is going on right now? And why is it happening like this? At Wired, we're obsessed with getting to the bottom of those questions on a daily basis, and maybe you are too. I'm Katie Drummond, the global editorial director of Wired, and I'm hosting our new podcast series, the Big Interview. Each week I'll sit down with some of the most interesting, provocative and influential people who are shaping our right now. Big Interview conversations are fun.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

I want a shark that.

[Katie Drummond]

That eats the Internet, that turns it all off, unfiltered and unafraid. So in a lot of ways, I try to be an antidote to the unimaginable faucet of reactionary content that you see online. To the best of my ability, every week, we're going to offer you the ultimate luxury of our times. Meaning and context. True or false? You, Brian Johnson, the man sitting across from me, one day, at some point, as of yet undefined in the future, you will die. False. Tell me more. Listen to the Big Interview right now in the same place you find Wired's Uncanny Valley podcast. Subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

So, of course, when you write about art, you touch on politics often.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Yeah.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

You wrote quite recently about Amy Sherri, whom Michelle Obama chose to paint her official portrait.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Mm.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

And you write, you must, and I mean absolutely have to see Sheryl's work in person, if at all possible. And then you go on to write about her spectacular rendering of Obama's dress as a symbol of Michelle's public role and the clat with which she performs it. You write about the portraits she herself had commissioned. And you write, she activates the double function of portraiture as the recognition of a worldly identity. And in the best instances, the surprise of an evident inner life race applies as a condition and a cause for resetting the mainstream of Western art. Could you explain that?

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Well, it was ignored and underrated and suppressed. So it's like somebody like Sherelle who is taking on a sort of tradition back to the broke of political portraiture or class portraiture and applying it to upper middle class black people. It refreshes. It refreshes the tradition. It makes it new. Art doesn't change. I mean, artworks don't change, they stay. But we change.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

You had talk a little bit about how you acquire taste, and I'm just sort of curious about what advice you would give to someone who wants to learn to look at art a little bit differently. And you talk about limbering your sensibilities, stalking the aesthetic everywhere. Cracks in the sidewalk, people's ways of walking. The aesthetic isn't bounded by art which merely concentrates it for efficient consumption. If you can't put a mental frame around it and relish the accidental aspect of a street or a person or really of anything, you will respond to art only sluggishly.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

That's kind of bossy, doesn't it?

[Dorothy Wickenden]

It does, but I love it anyway.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Yeah, but I was thinking, you know, I don't. It's like, you know, how do you learn to swim? Well, get in the water. I mean, do you like art or not? Some people aren't attuned to it. It isn't the aesthetic. It's not a factor in their life. It doesn't make them inferior people, some of the worst people in history have been great aesthetes. You do it and it helps to talk about it. I mean, I think our criticism is, in a way, to have an aesthetic experience is inward and it's very lonely and it can seem pretty wacky. I mean, you're looking at what a dirty piece of cloth. I mean, some stuff on a canvas, right? And you're starting to have these feelings and thoughts and you think, you know, am I insane? You know, and then you tell it to somebody else and they go, yeah. And you think, oof. You know, so that to me is the social function of criticism. And it works for movies and everything, but it's like to ratify and perhaps in some cases to correct our subjective experience.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

And you write about art that you adore but that you wouldn't write about because you can't imagine it mattering enough to other people. Can you think of an example?

[Peter Schjeldahl]

No. I mean, I'm sure I can, but no, I'm not going to do it. No, it is tough. I mean, there's some bad art that I find adorable. I mean, it's. By the way, bad art is much more instructive than good art. You learn more because when something falls apart, you can see what it's made of. You can sort of guess what the artist thought they were doing and see how it's not that. Whereas good art, and certainly great art, simply leaves you staring.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

So what's your next piece?

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Um, I'm. Something about visiting the Prado, and our friend Steve Martin decided that he needed me to talk to him about Velazquez, so we flew over on a private plane.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Oh, what a great boondoggle.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Yeah. Good gosh. And you know, and I'm pleased to be able, you know, like, encouraged to write an essay that's not a review.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Sounds great. I can't wait. Thank you so much, Peter.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

You're so welcome.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Peter Schjeldahl has been the New Yorker's art critic since 1998, and he is the author of Hot, cold, heavy light 100 art writings 1988-2018. This has been the political scene. You can subscribe to this and other New Yorker podcasts by searching for the New Yorker in your podcast app. And find more political analysis and commentary on newyorker.com feel free to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Our theme music is by Russell Gillespie. This program was produced by Alex Barron and Kylie warner for new yorker.com we're off for the next few weeks. Enjoy the holidays and lose yourself in a museum.

[Peter Schjeldahl]

Katie.

[Katie Drummond]

I'm Katie Drummond. I'm Wired's Global Editorial Director. I'm Michael Kalore, Wired's Director of consumer Tech and Culture.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

And I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior correspondent at Wired. And our show Uncanny Valley is all about the people, power and influence of Silicon Valley.

[Katie Drummond]

At Wired, we're constantly reporting on how technology is changing every aspect of our lives. So each week on the show, we get together to talk about one of the biggest stories in tech. Right? So whether we're talking about privacy, AI, social media, or a major tech figure, we will always explain the Silicon Valley. Forces behind these stories and how they affect you. Make sure you're following Uncanny Valley in your podcast app of choice so you don't miss an episode.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

From PRX.