Salle Days

The pornographically posed nudes, recalling a place somewhere south of shame; the shards of imagery that hint at stories but lead nowhere—the things that make David Salle's paintings unpleasant and awesome will do so even in the soothing context of New York's Whitney Museum, where a major show (forty pictures) opens this month. A museum survey at thirty-four is some kind of achievement; that Salle has managed to remain controversial is an even greater one. His trick is simple: With one hand, he anxiously holds a mirror to your heart. With the other, he coolly wrings what he can from tradition. Which is to say he's a modernist painter, and at his best an extraordinary one.

GERALD MARZORATI