0:00

LinkedIn Presents. I'm

0:06

Rufus Grissom. And I'm Caleb Bissinger. And

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this is The Next Big Idea. Today,

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how a journey into the bowels of

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the art world taught journalist Bianca Bosker

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how to see. My

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first job after college was at

0:33

Christie's, the auction house. It

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was something of an odd choice. I'd

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majored in English, not art history. In

0:41

fact, my familiarity with the art historical

0:43

canon was so cursory that I kept

0:45

a document in my desk called, How

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to Pronounce Famous Artists' Names. But

0:53

I was drawn to the glamour of the

0:55

art world, the opulence. And

0:57

to tell you the truth, it was glamorous. I

1:00

wore a suit every day. I

1:02

was welcomed into the grand homes of

1:05

prominent collectors where I

1:07

had the rather surreal experience of seeing

1:09

works by masters like Rauschenberg,

1:11

and Rothko, and Richter. I

1:14

think I pronounced those right. Hanging

1:16

nonchalantly on living room walls.

1:19

Also, one time I bumped into Leonardo

1:22

DiCaprio. Like, literally

1:24

collided with him. So

1:26

that was pretty cool. But

1:28

the longer I spent in the art world,

1:30

the more convinced I became that I would

1:32

never really fit in. I

1:35

wasn't debonair enough. I

1:37

wasn't European. I'd never

1:39

be one of the cool kids, the

1:41

chosen ones, the bon vivants par excellence.

1:45

So I quit. That

1:49

was almost 10 years ago, and

1:51

I haven't really looked back, but I have

1:53

been thinking a lot lately about my layover in

1:55

the art world. Thanks to a

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brilliant new book, a New York Times bestseller.

2:00

by journalist Bianca Bosker. It's

2:03

called Get the Picture, a mind-bending

2:05

journey among the inspired artists and

2:08

obsessive art fiends who taught me

2:10

how to see. Bianca

2:13

worked at galleries as an artist

2:15

assistant, even as a museum

2:17

security guard, trying to understand not just

2:20

how the art world operates, but

2:22

why art tickles our

2:24

grey matter, why it touches our souls,

2:27

why it matters. Like

2:31

me, she often felt like an unwelcome

2:33

guest who'd wandered into a private party

2:35

by mistake. A party, she

2:37

writes, where, "...pretension hung in

2:39

the air, like an

2:42

unacknowledged fart." Unlike

2:44

me, she stuck it out, obsessively

2:46

working to push past the pretension so

2:49

she could understand why so many people

2:51

devote so much time and energy and

2:53

money to something with

2:56

no obvious practical value. I

2:59

think her book would be worth reading, even if

3:01

it was only a fly-on-the-wall account of the New

3:03

York art scene. But Bianca

3:05

offers us more than that. She

3:07

goes deep on the growing body

3:09

of sociological, neurological, and psychological research

3:12

that aims to understand why humans

3:14

have been making art since forever,

3:18

and what looking at art does to

3:20

our brains. The conclusions

3:22

she draws have had a huge impact

3:24

on me. In just

3:26

the last few days, I've been looking at and

3:28

learning from and appreciating art in

3:30

new ways. And I've

3:32

been seeing art in new places, which

3:35

is to say, all around me.

3:38

So even if you're one of those people who

3:40

says that you don't get art, even

3:43

if the thought of going to a gallery or

3:45

a museum causes you to break out in hives,

3:48

I'm here to tell you that art can

3:50

have a profound impact on your mind, your

3:52

body, on your soul. You

3:54

just have to learn how to see. Coming

3:57

up, Bianca is going to teach you

4:00

how to do just that. Welcome

4:30

to the next big idea. Thank

4:32

you so much for having me. I'm going

4:34

to start by asking you to read a

4:36

passage from your new book, Get the Picture.

4:39

Partly, I wanted to give listeners a sense of what

4:41

a great writer you are. I also want to give

4:44

them a sense of what this book is all about.

4:46

So I wonder if you

4:48

can read the final paragraph of the

4:50

introduction. With great pleasure. Thank you. All

4:53

right, here we go. What I did

4:55

do over a period of several years

4:57

is disown my normal life and discover

4:59

just how messy fine art can be.

5:02

I attached myself to brush nerds,

5:05

color lovers, eyes, heads, and artist

5:07

groupies, and learned what keeps them

5:09

up at night. I bled over

5:11

canvases, lost patches of skin to a sculpture,

5:13

and let a nearly naked stranger sit on

5:15

my face in the name of art. I

5:18

worked as a museum guard protecting

5:20

a pile of dust and learned

5:22

why scientists call art a biologically

5:24

essential tool. I got

5:26

drugged, dared, shamed, shushed, and befriended

5:29

by art obsesses who treat paintings

5:31

like vital organs and know how

5:33

to find beauty where we least

5:35

expect it. In the

5:37

process, I discovered another existence.

5:39

One where the act of looking is an

5:42

adventure. So Bianca, why did you

5:44

decide to disown your life and

5:46

venture out into the art world? Well,

5:48

I have to confess that for a long time,

5:50

art and I were not on speaking terms. Going

5:54

to galleries and museums reliably made me feel like

5:56

I was at least two tattoos and a master's

5:58

degree away from figuring out what. was going

6:00

on. You go into

6:02

one of these impeccably appointed

6:04

rooms with their flawless white

6:06

walls and intense lighting and

6:09

you turn this corner and you find a bunch

6:11

of people silently contemplating

6:13

a sculpture of decaying vegetables

6:15

on a stained mattress. And

6:17

you think, or I thought,

6:19

okay, everyone gets the punchline

6:21

except me. And art had been

6:23

a passion of mine growing up, but I have to confess

6:26

that as an adult, I was intimidated.

6:28

I felt alienated and I sort of

6:30

took the coward's way out and withdrew. But then

6:33

I started trying to reconnect with art. I

6:35

started going back to galleries and museums and

6:37

I began to be consumed

6:41

with this worry that

6:43

by turning my back on art, I was

6:45

missing out on something big. I am

6:48

someone who is obsessed with obsession and

6:50

really the passion of these art scenes

6:52

drew me in. I'd never met a

6:54

group of people willing to sacrifice so

6:56

much for something of so little obvious

6:58

practical value. Gallerus who max

7:01

out credit cards to show hunks of

7:03

deformed metal they swear will change the

7:05

world, artists who, you know, scrimp

7:07

on rent so their paintings can live

7:10

better than they do. I mean, they wake

7:12

up on a friend's couch covered in cat

7:14

pee. And I was really surprised to discover

7:16

that scientists are right there with artists in

7:18

insisting that art is a fundamental part of

7:20

our humanity, as one biologist puts it, is

7:22

necessary to us as food or sex. So

7:25

I was really bothered by this idea that

7:27

I didn't understand how to

7:29

engage with art. You know, these art

7:31

lovers acted like they'd access this trap

7:34

door in their brains. They had this

7:36

expansive approach to life that made my

7:38

own existence feel claustrophobic by comparison. And

7:41

I just became fixated on whether I could

7:43

see art and whether I could see the

7:45

world the way they did and

7:47

what would change if I could. So I decided, much

7:50

to a lot of people's chagrin, that I would try

7:52

and throw myself into the nerve center of the fine

7:54

art world and see what I learned. Talk

7:56

a little bit about that chagrin because as you

7:59

start knocking on doors... They get slammed

8:01

in your face, don't they? Yes, that's definitely

8:03

an accurate way to put it. I did start

8:05

reaching out to art experts, you know,

8:07

hoping to get answers to what I thought

8:10

were rather fundamental questions like, how do

8:12

you do art? Why does this matter?

8:14

You know, why are you so passionate

8:16

about this? And

8:18

to my surprise, instead of answers,

8:20

I got threats, warnings.

8:22

You know, people who told me that what

8:24

I wanted to do was impossible, if not

8:26

vaguely dangerous. And I have to say, this

8:28

was a big surprise to me. And maybe

8:30

I was naive, but based on everything that

8:33

the art world advertised about itself, I thought

8:35

I would find this group

8:37

of open-minded free thinkers who wanted

8:39

to embrace as many people in the warm

8:41

hug of art. And it

8:43

wasn't until I eventually actually started working at

8:45

galleries that I realized

8:47

how misguided that expectation was.

8:50

I think that there is

8:52

this strategic snobbery that

8:54

exists in the art world.

8:56

There is this actually deliberate

8:58

attempt to, in many cases,

9:00

keep people out. So,

9:02

coincidence, that I ended up working for a dealer

9:04

who referred to the general public as Joe Schmoes.

9:06

So, yeah, there really was

9:08

this secrecy. I mean, nothing

9:10

really prepared me for how hard it would be

9:12

to get access. I felt like an FBI agent

9:15

trying to get in with the mob. You

9:17

alluded a second ago to the

9:20

dealer who referred to non-art world

9:22

denizens, Schmoes. And

9:24

this is a dealer you meet sort of in your

9:27

first waypoint on this journey. You end up getting a

9:29

gig at this gallery called 315 in Brooklyn. And

9:33

I mean, to keep those Schmoes out, this

9:35

dealer, his name is Jack, has basically built

9:37

the gallery on the second floor of a

9:40

nondescript building. There's very little signage. Tell

9:42

us how you ended up there and what you started

9:45

learning about the art world once you got immersed at

9:47

that particular gallery. Yeah. So, I

9:49

Was very lucky to find that gallery. It's

9:51

very cool up and coming gallery in Brooklyn

9:53

that worked with emerging artists, which is sort

9:56

of art speak for artists that you've never

9:58

heard of. and... They never

10:00

here as and I was particularly drawn

10:02

says up and coming emerging side of

10:05

the art world because I think that

10:07

is the highest stakes and least covered

10:09

part of the art world. But that's

10:12

where you see it's the first draft

10:14

of history trying to be written Now

10:16

I will say that you as I

10:18

started working at this gallery yeah I

10:21

was battling walls and inviting press releases

10:23

as you will lose a to I

10:25

began to be initiated into all of

10:28

these techniques that are used by. The

10:30

art world to keep the rest of us

10:32

at arm's length. cells where you put your

10:34

gallery is a big one. On

10:37

a lot of calories are located less

10:39

like stores and speakeasies. you know they're

10:41

hidden on second or third floors and

10:43

buildings that could just as easily how's

10:45

apartments I were to the dealer who

10:47

says that a store front space is

10:49

actively and because then you have to

10:51

deal with and I quote random ass

10:53

people in up I was myself a

10:56

liability. My boss quickly made clear that

10:58

an easy to make over on as

11:00

he put me one afternoon. you not

11:02

the coolest cat and the art world

11:04

so having you around it's just like

11:06

lower. And by coolness. so he

11:08

suggested your wardrobe, severe haircut? Know

11:11

jewelry? I was advised to tone

11:13

down my superficial enthusiasm. As you

11:15

may know from your own travels

11:17

in the art world are connoisseurs

11:19

basically exclusively discuss art in this

11:22

really flat ass access monotone that

11:24

Nixon sounds like they're running out

11:26

of batteries. Ah, the way I

11:28

spoke with was problematic. I was

11:30

advised to excise certain words for

11:33

my vocabulary. so work is not

11:35

sold. Its placed it. Is not

11:37

a website but an online viewing room.

11:39

Fluency with art speak is a must.

11:41

So you know what an art critic

11:43

called the indexical marks of an artist's

11:45

body would be a finger painting to

11:47

most of us. I really got the

11:49

sense that there was a right way

11:51

to be around art, that if you

11:53

wanted to make it within this inner

11:55

circle, you had to act a certain

11:57

way. Dress a certain way speak as.

12:00

Certain way. And what's interesting is like

12:02

to know. We. Can talk more about this

12:04

whole. Idea. Context That case.

12:06

So much weight and the art

12:08

world these days. But while you

12:10

as a potential buyer or view

12:12

works are judging the artwork, the

12:14

gallerist is charging you. and I

12:17

think all of this or strategic

12:19

snobbery. All of this. Big

12:21

of the small A Terry It

12:23

is a way ultimately to build

12:26

Mystique to. Keep. Power and

12:28

the hands of the gatekeepers and

12:30

also maintain the image of the

12:33

art world as this exclusive purview

12:35

of a self anointed few is

12:37

a weird. Way in which the aren't would. I

12:40

think view secrecy as key to it's

12:42

survival as well as a journalist at

12:44

it as part of the reason I

12:46

was persona non grata. You know there

12:48

are things that happen in this world

12:50

that would pass for absurd, unethical, illegal

12:52

just about anywhere else. And if you

12:54

haven't taken this mafia like a maritime

12:56

zao of silence, you're viewed as a

12:58

risk. Doing. Some examples of

13:00

the absurd: unethical and illegal.

13:04

Not as a great question. I'm not

13:06

sure if we have time for a

13:08

full area of all of the art

13:11

world's dirty laundry that might dig more

13:13

than are allotted time for knew what

13:15

was particularly interesting as I think that

13:17

there's a way in which the Arts

13:19

Machine encourages to believe that the process

13:22

by which and artwork goes from being

13:24

unknown to celebrate it works just fine

13:26

and price on really striking about inserting

13:28

myself into this machine. With.

13:31

Understanding all of the ways as that

13:33

isn't true at all. the ways that

13:35

it gets corrupted along the way. So

13:37

I mean just as an example you

13:39

i think that I had always i've

13:41

looked at museums is being these and

13:43

impeachable custodians of the best that culture.

13:45

Has to offer and.

13:48

As I started selling or it with

13:50

galleries added into his face and that

13:52

idea. I mean I'm number one afternoon

13:54

during the Art Fairs of Miami during

13:56

Art Basel. Mammy beats you know we

13:58

had a curator. funny as. The died

14:00

a group of tea tray this around the

14:02

stay or including to our booth and as

14:05

the and that's one of these wealthy donors

14:07

came back to our booth to announce that

14:09

they would take two versions of the exact

14:12

same photographs, one to be donated directly to

14:14

the museum and one to be shipped directly

14:16

to her house. And I mention that because

14:18

it's. Philanthropy Little.

14:20

Bit of polite corruption in the sense

14:23

that you know the minute an artwork

14:25

goes to museum, it's price usually goes

14:27

up. But I also think that curators

14:29

and and institutions like to insist that

14:31

money plays no role in determining the

14:33

artworks that they put up for the

14:36

public to view. and at the end

14:38

of the day like the work that

14:40

shows up in museums. It's.

14:43

Just the product of decisions by individuals

14:45

who are flawed and biased and subjective

14:47

and operating but and certain limitations. And

14:49

just like any of us, right and

14:52

Money as one of them and is

14:54

a while it's incredibly difficult to six

14:56

all of the flaws in the machines.

14:59

We can begin to do so for

15:01

ourselves by widening our earth horizons. I

15:03

would I mean by that is I

15:05

think there's something to be gained by

15:08

spending less time with quote unquote masterpieces

15:10

and more time seeking out. Or that

15:12

is. An celebrated undiscovered unknown.

15:14

Surprising. Ultimately, you can't just believe

15:16

that because something is hung in

15:18

a fancy white room, that it's

15:20

great at the end of the

15:23

day. The only I that you

15:25

can trust is your own and

15:27

one way to develop your eyes

15:29

is to see more. Work will

15:31

add. You wanna talk a little bit later

15:33

on about the journey of developing ones? I

15:35

am the pleasure of adventure and seeing art

15:37

and new ways, but bullet seek on this

15:40

theme of mystery or intentional obfuscation that you

15:42

encountered in the our role because I think

15:44

it's fascinating and I'm a lover. your sought

15:46

him out. The ways in which we think

15:48

there is sort of museums are these pure

15:51

spaces and they're not because the Our world

15:53

is incredibly. Incestuous. frankly

15:55

were then collectors and the curators in

15:57

the galleries in the artist to some

15:59

extent all sort of in bed with each other.

16:01

There's a little bit of a cabal. I'm

16:03

intrigued by this notion of mystery, and I

16:06

think it even comes down to the careers

16:09

that exist in the art world, right? I

16:11

was thinking about the career of gallerist, and

16:13

I was thinking about how often it shows

16:15

up as a job for a character in

16:17

a romantic comedy, because it's sort of glamorous,

16:20

but the viewer doesn't really understand what a

16:22

gallerist does day to day, so they don't

16:24

sort of balk at the fact that in

16:27

the rom-com, the gallerist seems to be spending

16:29

all their time pursuing love and not actually

16:31

working. Right.

16:33

All you ever really see is someone walking

16:35

out from behind a desk somewhere

16:38

and gesturing vaguely at some paintings

16:40

around them, right? Exactly, and just looking hopelessly

16:42

chic. But as you learned,

16:45

the role of gallerist is crazy demanding,

16:47

right? Tell me a little bit about what

16:49

you found there. When you

16:51

look at what gallerists do, they

16:54

play a really essential role, first

16:56

of all, in the ecosystem. They

16:58

are there scoping out

17:00

artists to show they are giving

17:02

artists a public forum in which

17:04

to exhibit their work, and

17:07

at the same time, they are

17:09

this combination

17:11

of like pageant mom,

17:14

cruise director, informal

17:17

pharmacist, and therapist.

17:20

I was really interested as my first step

17:22

into the art world to go work at

17:24

a gallery, because I felt like

17:26

they touch all parts of

17:28

the machine. They are working with

17:30

artists, they are schmoozing collectors, they

17:33

are hobnobbing with curators, trying to

17:35

get their artists into museums, and

17:38

they sort of see it and do it all. And

17:41

the gallerist, of course, is also there

17:43

to set prices for the work, right?

17:45

To start building a market for the

17:47

artist, and that is a very arbitrary

17:49

process you learned, isn't it?

17:51

I mean, wow, money

17:53

begins to lose all sort

17:56

of logic when you enter the art

17:58

world. But I mean,

18:00

prices when it comes to art are

18:04

fungible. And as one person

18:06

described it to me, totally made up. At

18:08

one of the galleries I worked for, their

18:10

process for determining the price for

18:13

a work was basically to look

18:15

around at what other artists at

18:17

a similar point in their career

18:19

were charging for their work and

18:22

go with that. By and large,

18:24

galleries and artists are not determining

18:26

the prices for these works by

18:29

sitting down, calculating everybody's costs, and

18:31

then figuring out what do they need

18:33

to charge to break even or make

18:35

a profit. As other

18:38

galleries described it to me, they were like, you know,

18:40

we sit around a table and basically think, huh, I

18:42

think someone would pay for that. And

18:44

they begin making phone calls. And as people balk

18:46

at the prices, they might knock a

18:49

little bit off the price. If everything sells

18:51

out, again, they might raise it. So

18:53

value in the art world is sometimes

18:56

based on aesthetics, but really more often

18:58

based on these sort of arbitrary metrics.

19:01

And you alluded to this earlier, this

19:03

idea of context. Context is

19:05

key in the emerging art world. Tell

19:08

us what do art folks mean when

19:10

they talk about a work's context? Great

19:12

question. Key question. So many

19:14

of these art connoisseurs that I

19:16

was meeting spent surprisingly

19:19

little time discussing the merits

19:21

of the artworks themselves. And

19:23

instead they asked, where

19:25

did this artist go to school? Who else owns

19:27

the work? Who is he sleeping with?

19:30

And that is this so-called context,

19:33

right? The web of names around

19:35

an artist is their context. The

19:37

social capital around an artist is

19:40

their context. And

19:42

that context seemed to influence people's

19:44

judgment of the work even more

19:46

than the piece itself.

19:49

That didn't sit well with me. I felt like

19:51

context was, first of

19:54

all, one more way to exclude the schmoes.

19:56

And I also felt like all this emphasis on context

19:59

was... was basically pushing me

20:01

to outsource my eye to the hive

20:04

mind. Now,

20:06

it wasn't until I started working as

20:08

a studio assistant in artist's studios that

20:10

I felt like I discovered a different

20:13

way to engage with art, a

20:15

way to push away the context.

20:18

And I felt like something really clicked for

20:20

me as I sat on their studio floors,

20:22

like stretching canvases and painting backgrounds. And

20:25

what it was is that I think all

20:27

of the like hushed whispering

20:29

about like indexicality that goes on

20:32

in galleries and museums hadn't

20:34

prepared me for the blistery business of

20:36

actually making art. You

20:38

know, I lost patches of arm

20:40

hair to a sculpture. Like I nearly

20:42

like maimed myself with staple guns. I

20:45

watched an artist sweating for hours over

20:47

the right shade of gray. And

20:50

I think we've been told for the last

20:52

hundred years that what really matters about an

20:54

artwork is the idea behind it. The thought

20:57

trumps the thing. But

20:59

an idea is not a

21:01

painting. Painting is constant decision

21:03

making. And

21:05

it really is this physical process. Like you are

21:07

wrestling with the laws of gravity and you

21:10

have to make things stick, stay, lay. And

21:14

I think watching artists work really

21:16

helped me understand how to savor

21:18

art like an artist. And that

21:21

meant slowing down. That

21:23

meant examining the physical form of

21:25

an artwork. And it meant

21:28

paying attention to the decisions that an artist

21:30

had made. I also took

21:32

the advice of an artist who challenged me

21:34

to when confronted with an artwork, just notice

21:36

five things in the piece. And I found

21:38

that it was a really helpful pathway into it.

21:40

So those five things don't have to be grandiose. It

21:43

does not have to be, you know, this

21:45

painting is a commentary on like hierarchical

21:48

social relations in the aftermath of the

21:50

French Revolution, right? It could just be,

21:52

you know, this pink makes me want

21:54

to poke it. That

21:57

for me was so

21:59

revealing. So empowering. I felt like

22:01

I was finally able to engage with art

22:03

on my own terms. I was able to

22:05

push away the snobbery, ignore

22:08

the context, and see art

22:10

face to face with less

22:12

pretense and more mystery than I ever

22:14

had before. Let's

22:16

take a quick break. When we come back,

22:19

Bianca will talk about what art does to

22:21

our brains. Scientists and

22:23

artists have both come

22:25

to this conclusion that

22:27

art essentially offers

22:30

our brains a glitch. It

22:32

is a glitch that is a gift. It is

22:34

a glitch that helps our minds

22:37

escape their well-worn pathways. The

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off. Welcome

23:26

back to the show. Human

23:28

beings have been making art forever.

23:31

Painting is older than the written word.

23:34

Paint itself is older than the wheel. But

23:36

even if art has been around from

23:38

time immemorial, we're still trying

23:41

to find answers to questions like, what

23:44

is art? And scientists are

23:46

only just now coming up with

23:48

answers about why our brains seek

23:50

it out. Art is

23:52

in many more places

23:54

than we give it credit for. I

23:57

also worked with an artist named Amanda

23:59

Alsieri. And she was an artist who had

24:02

a very impressive resume, MFA

24:05

from Columbia, experienced showing at

24:07

the most respected arts

24:09

venues in the country. And

24:11

at the time that I met

24:13

her, she had spent the last few

24:15

years actually performing as an ass influencer

24:17

on Instagram, which is to say, she

24:19

was an influencer who had hundreds of thousands

24:22

of followers that she had gained through

24:24

posting, revealing photos of her butt. And

24:27

I didn't know much about her work, but another artist invited

24:29

me to her opening where Amanda,

24:31

or Mandy Alfi, which is her online

24:33

name, had invited her fans

24:36

to come to the gallery for a live

24:38

face sitting where she was going to sit

24:40

on their faces until, and I quote, they

24:43

couldn't take it anymore. Now, I have

24:45

to confess that my initial reaction to this was, this

24:48

is absurd. This is everything wrong

24:50

with the art world. Like, we have taken

24:52

this too far. And

24:55

I got there, and before

24:59

I knew it, she was sitting on my face. Needless

25:01

to say, I couldn't stop thinking about her work. And

25:04

I think part of it was that her

25:06

work raised really

25:08

thorny, difficult questions around

25:10

what is art. I

25:13

was fascinated to discover that

25:17

our idea of what art is today is really

25:19

a hangover from these

25:21

rather arbitrary decisions that were

25:23

made by status-conscious Europeans in

25:25

the 1760s who decided

25:27

to elevate certain things to

25:29

the realm of fine art and demote everything

25:32

else to the realm of craft. So according

25:34

to these Europeans in the 1760s, art

25:37

was basically poetry, painting, sculpture, maybe

25:39

architecture, a handful of things. And

25:41

these things could move our souls. They could

25:44

transport us. And everything else was sort of

25:46

useful, but not moving products

25:49

made by sort of artisans who

25:51

were inspired, but useful. Right.

25:54

And I think

25:56

understanding that helped me begin to

25:58

see art. in so

26:01

many more places than I ever did before.

26:03

And scientists argue that it is crucial to

26:05

our survival as a species. And

26:07

I would say there are a number of explanations for

26:09

this, but one that particularly

26:12

resonated with me is this

26:14

idea that art helps us

26:17

fight the reducing tendencies of

26:19

our minds. So, you

26:21

know, part of the reason that context is

26:23

so tempting for us

26:25

to rely on is because it's

26:27

basically how our brains work. We

26:29

don't look at the world like

26:32

video cameras dispassionately recording the

26:34

scenes around us. Really

26:36

our brains are trash compactors. You

26:39

know, we have these filters of expectations

26:41

that descend and preemptively categorize,

26:43

sort, dismiss, prioritize all this raw

26:46

data coming in even before we

26:48

get the full picture. You know,

26:50

we are ultimately seeing this rather

26:53

compressed view of the world around

26:55

us, one that is already being

26:57

shaped by our expectations. And

27:00

scientists and artists have both come

27:03

to this conclusion that

27:06

art essentially offers our

27:08

brains a glitch. It is

27:10

a glitch that is a gift. It

27:12

is a glitch that helps our minds

27:15

escape their well-worn pathways. And

27:18

they're a bit like dreams in a sense. You know,

27:20

art is not always pleasant. But

27:23

it sort of reminds us that our

27:26

idea of what the world is shouldn't

27:28

be fixed. You know, it

27:30

sort of introduces these jarring sights

27:33

or experiences and in that process

27:35

opens us up to experiencing so

27:38

much more. Let me pause

27:40

you for a second actually because I want to

27:42

drill down on this idea that art is

27:45

a glitch, similar to a dream, right, that

27:47

shakes our brain out of its complacency. And

27:50

I think this partly explains something that a

27:52

lot of people struggle

27:54

to quite understand about art, which is

27:56

that so much of art is not

27:58

beautiful. It's not pretty. pictures, right? And

28:00

in fact, you encountered artists who would say

28:03

things to you like, beauty is my fucking

28:05

nemesis. And I think

28:07

it's easy to look at that and say,

28:09

oh, well, that's just a form of pretension.

28:11

And that's just a way of signaling, you

28:14

know, well, folks who are part of

28:16

the art world and understand the context

28:18

understand that things that are intentionally grotesque

28:21

are really where value and beauty are.

28:23

But in fact, there's this interesting, which

28:25

you've alluded to, maybe psychological neurological explanation,

28:28

right, for why art that is

28:30

not immediately, you know,

28:32

that's not just a screensaver is

28:34

actually art that can move us in

28:36

the most profound ways, isn't it? Yeah,

28:39

absolutely. So it's true that

28:42

for the last century or so, the

28:44

art world has basically treated beauty

28:46

as its nemesis. And that was

28:50

a bit off putting to me. I felt like, you

28:52

know, millennia of evolution had trained me

28:54

to try and avoid discomfort, you know, like

28:56

that was not something I was supposed to

28:59

run towards. But I

29:01

will say that when you think

29:03

about it, our brains run the

29:05

risk of essentially like

29:07

overfitting to the data that we're given

29:09

about the world. And so what art

29:11

can do is, is again, jostle

29:14

that algorithm in our brains loose, right,

29:16

help us lift those filters of expectation.

29:19

And I think one example

29:22

of that that's really powerful to

29:24

think about is color constancy. So

29:26

color constancy is this process by

29:29

which our brains

29:31

essentially regulate our

29:34

perception of the colors that we're seeing in

29:36

the world. So imagine that you have a

29:38

bowl of lemons. When you

29:40

look at that bowl of lemons under basically

29:42

any light, you will think, huh, they are

29:44

yellow. And our brains will convince

29:46

us that those lemons are

29:48

yellow, even in cases where the

29:50

light on them is causing the

29:53

light waves bouncing off those lemons to

29:55

be closer to the wavelength that we

29:57

would typically call green. So

30:00

that's color constancy. Color constancy is actually

30:02

our brains fiddling with the controls to

30:04

ensure that like, you know, a white

30:06

shirt looks white to us even when

30:08

it looks purple under certain lighting conditions.

30:10

Now, scientists have made the interesting observation

30:12

that there's a particular group of people

30:14

that seems very good at interrupting

30:17

that color constancy process, in lifting

30:19

those filters of expectation to see

30:21

the actual colors. And that group

30:23

of people is artists.

30:26

There's an amazing series of paintings

30:28

by Monet of a cathedral where

30:30

he paints it under different lighting

30:33

conditions. At dawn, it's

30:35

like this radiant poppy orange in

30:37

places with butterfly wing purple and

30:39

others. And I went to

30:41

a fascinating talk by neuroscientists who argued that, you

30:44

know, that's not just artistic license. That is Monet

30:46

interrupting color constancy. That's him lifting

30:48

his filters of expectation. And

30:51

I got to watch artists really doing

30:53

this in their studios. Julie Curtis,

30:55

the artist, I remember her trying

30:57

to paint this gray door and

30:59

where I saw gray, she saw

31:01

this incredible rainbow

31:03

of lavenders and yellows

31:06

and pinks and blues.

31:09

I think what's exciting about using

31:12

art to teach us how to

31:15

fight the reducing tendencies of our

31:17

minds is that it can

31:19

open us up to the chaos,

31:22

the nuance, and also, yes,

31:24

the beauty of the world

31:26

around us. And I came to

31:28

think that beauty is ultimately our

31:31

name for this experience

31:34

that nudges us to

31:36

a place where we're wondering about

31:39

the world and our place in

31:41

it. Beauty draws you close. Beauty

31:43

inspires curiosity. Julie

31:46

was obsessed with this sewage treatment plant in

31:48

Brooklyn and she insisted it

31:50

was beautiful. And it wasn't until later

31:52

when I found myself like searching it out in the

31:54

skyline, wanting to write about it, like willing to

31:56

do anything to go visit it, that

31:59

I realized like It is beautiful.

32:01

That is beauty. Beauty is this

32:03

thing that again draws us deeper

32:06

into our existence and is ultimately

32:08

this excited hell yes to what

32:10

life has to offer. Yeah,

32:13

beauty grabs us by our

32:15

lapels. Yes. Yeah,

32:17

and like shakes us a little bit, right?

32:19

Yeah. I love all these

32:22

details about sort of the science, the neuroscience

32:24

of what we get when we look

32:26

at art. And I want to talk

32:28

about how you put some of those in practice a

32:30

little bit. You've alluded to this. You got a job

32:32

as a security guard at

32:34

the Guggenheim. Tell me about

32:37

why you wanted to do that

32:39

and how that experience started to

32:41

change how you actually looked with

32:43

and engaged with art, how you

32:45

totally shed the context bullshit and

32:48

saw art as something different, something

32:50

transcendent. Well, there are a number of different reasons

32:53

why I decided to become a security

32:55

guard. I mean, one of them was

32:57

art people can't agree on much, but

32:59

everyone that I met could basically agree

33:01

that museums were

33:03

the ultimate end

33:05

point in this world. Like everyone was sort

33:07

of elbowing to get their work into a

33:09

museum. And so I couldn't help

33:12

but wonder like what went on behind the

33:14

scenes? What actually

33:16

went down in the hushed

33:18

corridors of these robust institutions?

33:21

And I was also very curious

33:23

to know how being around art

33:25

for hours on end with no

33:28

possibility for escape would affect my

33:30

relationship with the work. So

33:32

I will tell you that initially the

33:35

job was extremely boring. Here,

33:39

I remember like stepping out on some of my

33:41

early posts and I was like, I would just

33:44

mentally beg someone to touch an artwork so I

33:46

could tell them not to. And I began to

33:48

break up the monotony in different ways. And one

33:50

of the things I did was actually to give

33:53

myself an exercise To look at

33:55

a single artwork for the full 40

33:57

minutes of a single post.. Yeah,

34:00

I can tell you that the only time

34:02

in my life that I had spent forty

34:04

minutes looking at a single artwork before. this.

34:07

Was. Never. And. Yet really

34:10

bizarre and exciting things began

34:12

to happen when engaged in

34:14

this process of slow looking

34:16

and. I to the

34:18

or his advice to notify things and

34:20

or five more and five more and

34:23

I began to develop relationships with the

34:25

art. with me and I will sit

34:27

at some. His relationships were a little

34:29

hostile, epic fights the certain painting mom's

34:31

There were some work that sort of

34:33

felt like be a visual equivalent of

34:35

an annoying person sitting in the middle

34:38

seat next to you on a plane.

34:40

Like I said okay, thank you like

34:42

that's enough. But then there are works

34:44

where I tapped, discovering something new after

34:46

forty minutes after four hours. To

34:48

four weeks and I set what I

34:51

can only describe as what I recognized

34:53

as loves for these artwork. See the

34:55

feeling that I could be around them

34:57

for as long as I could envision

35:00

into the future and not get sick

35:02

of their presence. And I will say

35:04

that there was a lot about that

35:06

experience that changed my own approached art.

35:09

I think for one thing I became

35:11

convinced that we needed to ignore the

35:13

wall labels again that subparagraph on text

35:15

and that exists next to. A lot

35:17

of artworks, Museums the Guys tactics. That

35:20

I just think you are. Decisions

35:22

the proper after. Us

35:25

and breeding the wall tax while

35:27

looking or work is it's you're

35:29

trying to have a conversation with

35:31

the work but someone keeps interrupting

35:33

the was hacked. Sort of implies

35:35

that there is a single right

35:37

answer to the work you deserve

35:39

exist. but the answer at the

35:41

bottom of the word search and

35:43

a reality there so many fascinating

35:46

ways into and artworks your I

35:48

will confess that asses started standing

35:50

to try and. keep people from

35:52

reading the while tax cuts and primer

35:54

block it with my back and when

35:56

i did that people's interpretations went wild

35:58

those one piece in particular by Brancusi

36:00

that I was obsessed with. And

36:02

when people didn't read the wall text or the tombstone,

36:05

which is that little description of like the artist's name

36:07

and the title of the piece and when it was

36:09

made and so on and so forth, they

36:11

would see a high

36:13

heel, a string of poop,

36:16

a woman, a fish. I

36:18

mean, you know, so many different things. And if

36:20

they just read the wall text, they would look

36:22

at it. The sculpture was called Miracle Parentheses Seal

36:25

and say, oh, it's a seal. I knew it

36:27

was a seal and move on. I

36:29

found that so depressing and heart wrenching. And

36:32

I think the second thing that that experience really changed for

36:34

me was I used to go to museums

36:36

and believe that like the only way to get my

36:38

money's worth was scorched earth viewing. Like I had to

36:40

look at every single thing in the war in the

36:43

museum, you know, that was the only way to have

36:45

actually done it like tick, tick, tick each work. And

36:48

afterwards, as I started working as a girl, I

36:50

began to think that was sort of like going

36:52

to all you can eat buffet and chowing down

36:54

on waffles and sushi and cheese fries and mimosas

36:56

and then wondering why you felt a little ill

36:58

at the end of it. And

37:01

I think that a museum and a gallery can be

37:03

a little more like an a la carte experience. Like

37:05

if you go in and there's one work and you

37:07

take time with that work and you have an experience

37:09

and it pulls you to it and you

37:11

stay there, that's it. Like

37:14

you've done it. And that's not to say

37:16

that we can't be better lookers. You know,

37:18

there's a study that shows that people spend

37:20

four times longer reading the wall text and

37:22

actually looking at the piece itself, which is

37:24

an average of eight seconds versus two seconds.

37:27

So, you know, challenge

37:29

yourself, spend five minutes with a piece, spend 15

37:31

minutes with a piece, spend 50

37:33

minutes with a piece and see what happens. But

37:35

also remember that just because one of these works

37:37

doesn't speak to you doesn't mean that you're doing

37:40

it wrong. And I was with the last thing

37:42

is what was so exciting for

37:44

me was actually stepping out of the museum

37:46

each day at the end of my

37:49

shift and seeing art all

37:51

around me. My eyes would settle on

37:53

these hot dog carts. I was like,

37:56

these are sculptures, man. You know, like

37:58

there's something really exciting. It's exciting

38:00

about looking at the

38:02

everyday the way that

38:04

we look at art with this extra

38:06

beat, with this willingness to ask why,

38:09

to ponder the fragility of

38:12

these objects around us, the

38:14

miraculous impossibility of something as

38:17

quotidian as, I don't know,

38:19

a toothbrush. I

38:22

think that that's really exciting, the

38:24

way that art expands

38:27

our appreciation for and our

38:30

wonder at the everyday.

38:33

And to trust our own

38:35

instincts and interpretations and desires.

38:38

The thing about the wall text, right, is that,

38:40

and we see this actually in all sorts of

38:43

different pieces of culture. Like, it's the TV recap

38:45

that you open immediately after you've watched the episode

38:47

of a show that you don't understand, and the

38:49

critic explains it to you and you adopt that

38:51

explanation. I think we have this deep

38:55

discomfort that

38:57

the modern world has tried to alleviate

38:59

through wall text and recaps and podcasts

39:01

to just explain things and to create

39:03

orthodoxy and to excuse

39:05

us from having to live with the discomfort of, I

39:08

don't know how this makes me feel, I don't understand

39:10

this, but I can't look away and let me see

39:12

what conclusions I could draw on my own. Absolutely.

39:15

And I think that developing an eye

39:18

is crucial in our day and

39:20

age when we live in such

39:22

a visual culture. I mean, there

39:24

are images all around us constantly

39:27

hollering for our attention. You know, they

39:29

wave at us from Instagram, they scream

39:31

at us from billboards, they like, I

39:34

don't know, shake themselves from the frozen food

39:37

aisle. And these images are not

39:39

neutral, right? They are trying to influence us. They're

39:41

trying to get us to do something. And

39:43

so developing an eye can begin with art, but

39:45

the rewards of doing so certainly

39:49

don't end there. Developing

39:52

an eye doesn't just help you digest the images

39:54

that are coming at you in all directions. Learning

39:58

to look at art can make you a better doctor. a

40:00

better police officer, a better FBI

40:03

agent or Navy SEAL. Bianca

40:05

will explain what I'm talking about right

40:08

after the break. I

40:15

wanna quickly tell you about the next Big

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41:01

nextbigideaclub.com, promo code

41:03

podcast. I

41:06

love this anecdote in the book you give about someone

41:08

named Erwin

41:11

Braverman, who was a professor

41:13

of medicine at Yale,

41:16

who basically found that developing a

41:19

new book, a new book, is a

41:21

new book. And it's a

41:23

new book, and it's a new book. And it's a

41:25

new book, and it's a new book. And

41:27

it's a new book, and it's a new book. And

41:31

it's a new book, and it's a

41:33

new book. And the one that developing

41:35

an eye for art could

41:37

make you a better doctor, right? Explain

41:39

that anecdote to me. I think it's so delightful. Oh,

41:41

so glad you brought up. I love that. So yes,

41:44

this was a physician who also taught

41:46

students, I believe, at the Yale Medical

41:49

School. And he began

41:51

to notice that many

41:53

of his students, and even the physicians around him, were

41:57

Not examining their patients holistically.

42:00

They were essentially as good as the salting. Back

42:02

to contacts here they would look at it a

42:04

few. Salient. Details

42:06

if it fit the pattern us

42:08

they would run with it. And

42:10

so she felt like okay, I

42:12

need to figure out a way

42:14

to teach my students to really

42:16

examine their patience, to really get

42:18

more information, take it it and

42:20

not be instantly jumping to conclusions.

42:22

So she decided trying to solve

42:24

this problem by actually taking his

42:26

students. To. An art

42:28

museum and teaching them how to look

42:31

what he basically did with have them

42:33

go and look at artworks and describe

42:35

them and this is really an exercise

42:38

in. Opening. One's

42:40

self up to sources of information

42:42

to listing that filter at expectations

42:44

and what he found was that

42:46

a group of students had been

42:49

to look at the artworks to

42:51

have noticed more. When they went

42:53

back to meet with their patients

42:55

they still had had Bridge Your

42:58

Observations does all kinds of great

43:00

things that came out of this

43:02

brief encounter with art to decide

43:05

to become a mandatory part of

43:07

the curriculum and I. Believe the

43:09

Yale School of Medicine, but at other

43:11

medical schools as well. And not only

43:13

that, but it has become a program

43:15

ugly has been embraced by everyone from

43:17

like F B I agents to. Navy

43:20

Seal. Hard to say I see.

43:22

Us as I think that

43:24

it's disposal wonderful anecdote about

43:27

the ways. That. Are

43:29

is rewarding to any of

43:31

us, and basically any discipline

43:33

that we pursue. And

43:36

there's this whole field to of

43:38

of neural aesthetics that I think

43:40

sir suggests a deeply contemplating art

43:42

is good for our house. It's

43:44

good for our wellbeing. Yeah

43:47

and it's fun! And it's been.

43:51

Okay, we're one that one last question for you. which

43:53

is you know you've alluded to this idea that when

43:55

we see of a work of art that confuses us,

43:58

we just have to try to come up with. Hide

44:00

things about it when that

44:02

performance artists was sitting on

44:05

your face. What?

44:07

Five things did you stop notice

44:09

in wonder about? So. I

44:11

will say that is that moment when

44:13

darkness descended and I seltzer the full

44:15

weight of another human. On. My

44:18

face. I definitely reach for that. Notice

44:20

that I have things safety, blanket and

44:22

sell. See I remember thinking. This

44:25

is the darkest place I've ever been

44:27

before. You know it's like. Third, I

44:29

can hear her last thing before she

44:32

last flight. Like I can feel almost

44:34

like the sort of seismic activity of

44:36

a Last before you can actually audibly

44:38

hear that. ha ha. Rates and I

44:41

eventually got. This place was like. This

44:44

is incredibly peaceful. Get out

44:47

like there's something weird leads

44:49

com thing about to the

44:51

weight of another human. Over.

44:53

You and I think by the

44:55

end is that like truth be

44:57

told I wouldn't have minded taking

44:59

a nap. I will confess as

45:01

I said before that stat experience

45:03

with Mandy all fires were really

45:06

listening relaying an end result of

45:08

persons who me but not only.

45:10

What? Is art but also what is

45:12

good art and what was that cease

45:15

fire seat sat on people's faces. Successful!

45:17

And it wasn't until later that I

45:19

began to. Develop a different

45:21

relationship with the context as case you.

45:24

I always thought of taste as a

45:26

destination like there was a right answer.

45:28

I had to have the right. Taste

45:31

and. After working

45:33

with artist I began to see taste

45:36

as instead. A journey is it?

45:38

A lot of look at our case as

45:40

something static. you know, like they are a

45:42

part of our identity. We embrace seven. we

45:44

do not want to change them and we

45:47

sort of linger in the comfort of our

45:49

tastes. probably for far too long he notes

45:51

or like a warm bath and we stay

45:53

there until you get pruning and the waters

45:55

dirty and cloudy and cold. And still

45:57

don't leave. It to. That

46:00

that artist really encouraged me

46:02

to sink as tastes instead

46:04

as his constant process of

46:06

exploration with new tastes comes

46:08

a new cells and I

46:11

think that open me up

46:13

to really appreciating experiences like

46:15

I had with Mandy. All

46:17

fire were tastes was something

46:19

to be present, it to

46:21

be nudged to be challenge.

46:23

And so I have had

46:25

such a blast in this

46:27

process of just trying to

46:29

expose. Myself to these new experiences where

46:32

I don't know what they're going all

46:34

me I know if I'm gonna like

46:36

them. I don't know whether it's arts

46:38

but I'm going to try and I

46:40

think there's something really exciting about treating

46:42

or I as a muscle and also

46:44

treating are taste as something elastic. Can

46:47

I do something like a little dizzy and

46:50

a little weird to have course and loved

46:52

it He answered. I read a poem. Yes,

46:55

You. Know that the poem when I

46:57

heard the learned astronomer by where women.

47:00

Know Okay, so many of them. Iridium.

47:04

When. I heard the learned astronomer

47:06

when the proof. The figures were

47:08

ranged in columns before me. when

47:11

I was shown the charts and

47:13

diagrams to add, divide and measure

47:15

them. When. I sitting for

47:17

the astronomer where he lectured with much

47:19

applause and the lecture room. Has.

47:22

Soon unaccountable, I. Became

47:25

tired and sick. To.

47:27

Rising and gliding out, I

47:29

wandered off by myself. In.

47:31

The mystical, moist night air.

47:34

And from time to time. Looked

47:36

up imperfect silence. At

47:38

the Stars. Looked

47:41

up in perfect silence at the

47:43

stars, right? For get the context

47:45

for get the index fatality, Ignore

47:48

the wall labels to smoke. But

47:51

I love that. Bianca Boss or

47:53

thank you so much for being with us today.

47:55

Thanks for for this book! Thanks for helping us

47:57

learn how to see. Thank you so much.

48:00

The Mayor Edu for that beautiful poem.

48:02

And those really embarrassing i'm I like

48:04

heart's racing looks at the zebra breakers

48:06

biases. The

48:10

Uncle Bolsters new book get the

48:12

Picture is out. Now if you

48:14

enjoyed this episode of got kind

48:16

of a fun way to let

48:19

me now go onto the world

48:21

and snap a picture of some

48:23

surprising piece of art hot stand

48:25

and advertisement sewage treatment plant. Send

48:28

it to me as podcast as

48:30

Next Big Idea club.com and. For

48:32

one of the first five people

48:34

to write in will give you

48:36

a free express membership to the

48:39

Next Big Idea Club Betty know

48:41

again his podcast at Next Big

48:43

Idea club.com Today's episode was written

48:45

and produced by me. Killer Bissinger

48:48

Sound design by my Toda Recess

48:50

Griscom is architecture to producer. We

48:53

could not make the show with at the

48:55

brilliant folks at a linked in podcast network. See

48:58

a week.