The photos of the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey in Ankara shocked many people. Jerry Saltz, the senior art critic for New York magazine, was mesmerized by their artistry.

They are "strikingly surreal — uncanny, even — and, in some very painful ways, beautiful," he wrote in a December 20 post for the magazine. The "poses" were "almost classical, frozen, or rehearsed as if from theater, ballet, painting, or mannequin display." "Everything in the images is emotion articulated, caught, performed, and real." The photo of the assassin doing an Islamic State one-figured salute, which Saltz did not seem to recognize (or chose to ignore), "could be a modern-day martyrdom by the most theatrical painter of them all, Caravaggio; the prelude to David's Oath of the Horatii; or one of Robert Longo's large black-and-white Falling Men drawings of figures in dramatic arrested motion — human beings seemingly cut out from the world, thrust onto this pictorial stage."

When a reader on Saltz's Facebook page accused him of bad taste, he responded that his job was "to notice things and say what I notice." He also reminded her that he had written that the assassination was "pathological, sick, murder." "You are mean, and intentionally misrepresenting to make yourself sound moral, churlish, small, self-righteous," he continued. "Fine. You are good; very good. I am bad; very bad. I 'anesthetize' death. Bad! Very bad. You should block such a bad man as me. You are good; very good. Please f—-off. Please block me. Why not? You can quit me can't you? Thank you!"

Part of my job is to notice things, too, so here are a couple of observations: Saltz's ironic "You can quit me can't you?" tells us a lot about why he would compare photos of an assassination to art. It's what Jerry Saltz does. It's an opportunity to show his icy intelligence and originality. It's part of his brand, and it's why people can't get enough of "Jerry," as his followers affectionately call him. His criticism is a drug, and everyone who reads him gets hooked.

Saltz, who was the art critic at Village Voice before becoming the senior art critic at New York in 2006, has spent the last ten years building an almost cult-like following through TV appearances and regular (and often personal) Facebook and Twitter postings. He has even appeared on a reality TV show. In 2010, James Panero explained the Saltz phenomenon in the New Criterion. "Saltz regularly mixes portentous metaphysical questions with internet messianism, unctuous flattery of his followers, treacly self-doubt, and gaseous emissions of political cant," Panero wrote. "The ultimate topic of discussion is not art or even his devoted followers but Jerry Saltz himself. An over-active online presence often brings out a writer's inner beast. For Saltz, who says he embraces his 'demons that demand I dance naked in public,' this has meant a rising megalomania, amplified by a feedback loop of constant faceless online reinforcement."

The assassination of the Russian ambassador in Turkey is the perfect occasion to be this Jerry Saltz. To compare the photos of the two Boeing 767s crashing into the Twin Towers would certainly count as dancing naked in public, but Saltz knows it wouldn't play right. The death of a Russian official in a far away country by an Islamic terrorist in a suit instead of a thawb, however, is just safe enough for a little self-serving display of brave individuality, as long as a few qualifiers—"pathological act of bloodletting, terrorism, nationalism"—are tossed in for protection against accusations of tactlessness and opportunism. If anyone accuses him of using a murder for self-promotion, he can call them out for "intentionally misrepresenting what I wrote" and tell them to "f— off." Otherwise, he can sit back and enjoy the feedback loop, retweeting things like: "@jerrysaltz may have just written the best essay on art and fear," and "incredible piece by @jerrysaltz on Ankara as historical art," and "The great @jerrysaltz gives an art critic's POV on the Ankara assassination."

Saltz's response also shows us the vacuousness of criticism that takes provocation as the only remaining touchstone of art. For many contemporary artists and critics, art—to be authentic—must be anti-capitalistic, anti-Western, anti-Christian. It must use images to show us the violence of Western, capitalistic oppression. Otherwise it is simply a means of reifying injustice.

Given this general, though often hypocritical, approach to art, it's not hard to see why photos of a terrorist killing in the name of Islam would seem so "beautiful." They are not only professionally shot, as Saltz remarks, with the dying diplomat lying uncannily on a pristine floor surrounded by gallery photographs, they also capture an anti-imperialistic sentiment in the shooter that has long preoccupied artists, though in different forms, in the West.