Get the Picture

Trust Yourself- Part 2

What makes a book compelling? Join me in reading good books and honing the craft of writing.

This is the second of two parts about tastemakers.

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at how a book won a Pulitzer and I (maybe you did too) decided the awards committee faceplanted. They were taken in by financial mumbo-jumbo.

In this concluding part, we expand into another art form, namely modern/contemporary art. If readers take anything away from this series, it’s this: be open to art brought to your attention by others, even tastemakers, but come to your own conclusions.

Because in many cases, the tastemakers are no different from a hawking carny, except with a better-educated accent.

Bianca Bosker at first skewers, then embeds herself in, the art world in Get the Picture. In so doing, she does the rest of us a huge favor.

The book itself isn’t above overselling to readers; she professes to be flummoxed why New York City art galleries won’t hire her, a reporter researching an expository on the art world. She needn’t try so hard to hook us. She’s done an amazing job of research and offers illuminating insights, even on her surprise participation in performance art.

She manages to get on with Jack, a gallery owner. Jack, a willing teacher, calls up a work on his computer. It’s by Danh Vo and is at the Guggenheim:

… preparing to have my mind blown, [I] beheld the masterpiece: a boxy television set balanced on a white minifridge balanced on a washing machine.

“It’s one of the best pieces I’ve seen in a long time,” Jack breathed, eyes glued to the computer.

…“Why?”

“Becauuuuseee…” Jack said, struggling to find the right words to capture the magnitude of his experience of the work. “It sums up the most poignant experience of his life! Which is his family leaving their home and relocating to Europe and the experience of cultural assimilation.”

Jack explains when Vo’s family arrived in Denmark, they were given these appliances which Vo’s art fans took as, not kindness, but as something forced. To which Bosker asks the question on our behalf:

How were you supposed to get that without having a working knowledge of Vo’s biography and Danish immigration policy circa 1970?

Her education continues:

Hold-up—I’d never taken an art-history class? Jack’s eyes bulged [at the revelation]. “Without education or training, you won’t be able to comprehend a lot.” I got the sense that to Jack, looking at art without studying art history was like doing surgery with a butter knife: You were dangerously unequipped and someone was going to get hurt…

[Jack says,] “You can’t trust your instinct. It’s influenced by mass culture. Your gut falls back on the safety of what’s accepted by society.”

No need to equate Jack’s belief that art representing/criticizing assimilation is the epitome of mass culture. We can do better to take on the Jacks-of-the-art-world. His is the classic con: You’re too stupid, too brain-washed, too mentally compromised to make up your own mind about what you like and don’t like. Listen to experts like me who tell you what you should like. All the better if you don’t understand a work or art, because it sets you off balance and we experts are here to catch you.

It’s the con great stories have repeatedly exposed: Disney’s Pinocchio runs into the sly fox Honest John and his troubles begin; Oliver Twist’s Artful Dodger; Tom Ripley in Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, and countless others.

Bosker portrays much of the art world as little more than high school level cliques. Rather than enlightening us, the art world takes us back to teenage-hood. Hold my place in that line!

She also explores what is art, not merely participating in performance art, but working in an artist’s studio and as a museum guard. Guarding art allows her the rare privilege of being paid to look at art for hours, and she learns to open her mind. Delving into science, hanging with collectors, she comes to understand much modern art is a visual pun, playing on our expectations and tripping us with pleasant surprise. She includes an extensive biography for those wanting more.

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My kids may think their father is losing it. I just purchased an apple, the largest and most expensive piece of fruit I’ve ever bought. Here’s how it happened: Once in a while, we visit art galleries, art festivals, and look. Always looking. I managed to walk past a collection, but Debbie, my wife, stopped and looked at the sculptures of Luis Gonzales of Miami, Florida. Luis explained he harvests his wood whenever a hurricane strikes the Miami area and downed hardwoods are in abundance. He didn’t have anything in a size that worked for us, so he went into his inventory and brought out the apple. Neither Luis’ origin story about the apple, or the revelation it was of olive wood, pushed us over the line. It was Debbie, who told me she’d had her eye on the artist for several years and how she craved one of his pieces.

It's our most expensive fruit, and we bought it from the artist himself, without consulting an “expert.” We bought it knowing its value as an investment is probably low and after perusing the galleries of New York City and elsewhere. We’ve discovered as we look at it, not just daily, but multiple times a day, as one of us rotates it to view another side, as its stem changes direction according to its moods, the piece has personality.

I finished the book after the apple. Boskers reaches a similar conclusion; the best art are the pieces that engage us.

Don’t be afraid to read new books and wrestle with other forms of art. And for heaven’s sake, blow off the hucksters—pedigreed, degreed, or just plain greedy—and take it on your own terms.

What books have you read involving con artists?

All the Best,

Geoff

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