Lifestyle

How the art world excludes you and what you can do about it

Published

2 years ago

February 7, 2024

How the art world excludes you and what you can do about it

In her new book Get the Picture, journalist Bianca Bosker explores why connecting with art sometimes feels harder than it has to be. Above, a visitor takes in paintings at The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London in 2010.

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When Bianca Bosker told people in the art world she’d be writing a tell-all about their confounding, exclusive ecosystem, “bad idea,” they responded.

“They didn’t come right out and threaten my safety or anything,” she writes in Get the Picture, “My reputation, well-being, and livelihood as a journalist —that, however, was another story.” Judging from the book’s recent reviews, she need not worry too much.

Bosker’s motivation for writing the book was partly frustration. “I didn’t know how to have a meaningful experience of art and that bothered me,” she tells me, “But also like I think the art fiends that I got to know, it’s not just that they look at art differently. They behave sort of like they’ve accessed this trapdoor in their brains and I envied that.”

Other journalists might have relied on research and interviews. Bosker went gonzo. She spent five years immersed in the New York art scene, working as a gallery assistant and helping artists in their studios. After getting a license to be a security guard with the state of New York, she got a guard job at the Guggenheim.

Bosker didn’t necessarily set out to write a takedown of the art world, though the result is pretty much just that. She writes about the time a performance artist sat on her face. And recounts a conversation with a dealer who said her mere presence (he didn’t like her clothes) was “lowering my coolness.” It’s unvarnished, awkward and eye-opening.

Borderline hostile

“Working at galleries, I became initiated into the way that the art world wields strategic snobbery to keep people out. And I think it’s deliberate and I think it’s unnecessary,” says Bosker.

Take the wall texts you often see at art museums. While they might be well-intentioned, Bosker believes they’re part of an over-emphasis on context.

“For the last 100 years or so, we’ve been told that what really matters about an artwork is the idea behind it.” Bosker says that “art connoisseurs” were very interested in “where an artist went to school, who owns her work, what gallery had shown it, who he slept with” and was surprised by “how little [time they] actually spent discussing the work itself.”

Of those wall labels, “I thought they were annoying, like borderline hostile … they just drove me crazy.”

At a recent visit to the Guggenheim, we saw one that included the phrase:

“…practice explores the liminal spaces of human consciousness…”

Bosker shudders. “If I had a dollar for every time someone in the art world used the word ‘liminal,’” she laughs. One artist she worked with told her, “‘Reading the wall labels is like you’re trying to have a conversation with the artwork, but someone keeps interrupting.’”

As a museum guard, Bosker occasionally took the matter into her own hands.

“I would actually try and stand in front of the wall labels so that people wouldn’t just fall back on the approved interpretations. They would challenge themselves and really wrestle with their own eye, which is so strong,” she says.

Small galleries deliberately keep out the ‘schmoes‘

If museums make some people feel unwelcome, Bosker learned that small, contemporary art galleries can be even worse. One that we visited in downtown Manhattan was hard to find. That’s typical, Bosker explains.

She says a lot of galleries “deliberately … hide themselves from the general public … I worked for someone who referred to general public as ‘Joe Schmoes’ and I think there are a lot of ways to keep out the schmoes, and where you put your gallery is a big one.”

Now, to be fair, those galleries are in the business of selling art.

Gallery owner Robert Dimin likes that Bianca Bosker is unmasking “our opaque art world” with her new book Get the Picture.

DIMIN

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DIMIN

Rob Dimin, another gallery owner Bosker worked for, does not refer to the general public as “schmoes” but he does like that his new gallery is tucked away. It’s on the second floor of a building with just a small plaque by the entrance.

Dimin’s last gallery was a storefront. “You [were] more likely to get people that had no intention or idea about the art or really interested in the art, just maybe kind of stumbling in,” he says, “There [were] moments when we were on the street level that people would come in and just have phone conversations on rainy days because it was an open space.”

People walking into a gallery to get out of the rain aren’t usually interested in buying art. But Dimin admits that the art world is “opaque” and he’s glad Bosker is unmasking it. There are parts of it even he doesn’t understand.

“Even as an art dealer, it sometimes is confusing,” he says, “Like, why is X, Y and Z artists getting acquired by every museum and having these museum shows? What is challenging for a person like me who’s been in this business for 10 years, I can only imagine a person not within the industry having more challenges.”

How to have a meaningful experience with art

Intentionally confusing, elitist, cloistered. While Bosker’s new book likens the art world to a “country club,” she says her feelings about art itself haven’t been diminished.

“Seeing artists in their studios agonize over the correct color blue, over … the physics of making something stick, lay and stay, really convinced me that everything we need to have a meaningful experience with art is right in front of us,” says Bosker.

Bianca Bosker takes a close look at a work by Julianne Swartz at the gallery Bienvenu Steinberg & J in New York. Bosker says it’s OK to “walk around a sculpture … just don’t touch it.”

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Bianca Bosker takes a close look at a work by Julianne Swartz at the gallery Bienvenu Steinberg & J in New York. Bosker says it’s OK to “walk around a sculpture … just don’t touch it.”

Elizabeth Blair/NPR

Here are a few tips she has for readers looking to evade the snobbery:

Slow down

“My philosophy had always been when I went to a museum … a scorched earth approach to viewing. I was like, ‘You have to see everything. That is how you get your money’s worth.’” Bosker says “museum fatigue” is real and compares it to eating everything at an all you can eat buffet. “No wonder you feel a little ill at the end of it.”

“If you find one work and you just spend your entire half hour, hour, hour and a half at that piece, you’ve done it. And I think that that can be oftentimes an even more meaningful experience.”

Find five things

Don't 'get' art? You might be looking at it wrong

“An artist that I spent time with encouraged me to, in front of an artwork, challenge yourself to notice five things. And those five things don’t have to be grandiose, like: ‘This is a commentary on masculinity in the Internet age.’ It could just be, you know, like this yellow makes me want to touch it.” Taking the time to notice those things will help viewers think about the choices an artist has made, Bosker believes.

“I think being around art ultimately helps us widen and expand our definition of what beauty is. And I think beauty … is that moment when our mind jumps the curb. It can feel uncomfortable, but it also is something that draws us to it. … It’s something that all of us need more of in our life. And art can be the gateway to finding more of it. It doesn’t have to happen with the traditionally beautiful artwork.”

Get as close to the source as possible

“What we see when we go to a museum is not necessarily the best that culture has to offer. … It’s the result of many decisions by flawed human beings. And one way to get around that is to widen your horizons. … Go to see art at art schools, go see art at the gallery in a garage and just kind of go close to the source.”

This story was edited for audio and digital by Rose Friedman. The web page was produced by Beth Novey.

Lifestyle

Street Style Look of the Week: Airy Beachy Clothes

Published

11 hours ago

April 22, 2026

Press Room

Street Style Look of the Week: Airy Beachy Clothes

“She’s like a female Willy Wonka,” Sakief Baron, 36, said about Kendra Austin, 32, after she explained that her personal style had a playful and cartoonish spirit.

Dressed in loose, oversize layers in blue and neutral shades, the couple were walking on the Upper East Side of Manhattan when I noticed them on a Saturday in April. There was a symmetry to their ensembles, so it wasn’t too surprising when she noted that he had influenced her fashion sense.

Before they met, she said, she was “less sure” about her wardrobe choices. “I also have lost 100 pounds in the time we’ve been together,” she added, which she said had helped her to recalibrate her relationship with clothes.

His style has been influenced by hip-hop culture, basketball players like Allen Iverson and his mother’s Finnish background. “I just take all these pieces and then it kind of comes together,” he said.

Both described themselves as multidisciplinary artists; he also has a job at a youth center, mentoring children. “I want to make sure that I look like someone they want to aspire to be every time they see me,” he said.

Lifestyle

What are Angelenos giving away in one Buy Nothing group? All this treasured stuff

Published

12 hours ago

April 22, 2026

Press Room

What are Angelenos giving away in one Buy Nothing group? All this treasured stuff

In my L.A. Buy Nothing group, I started noticing how some objects, given for free from neighbor to neighbor, carry emotional weight. An item was more than it appeared. It was a piece of personal history, perhaps one with generational memories.

From one person’s hands to another’s, objects find new life through the free gift economy on Facebook or the Buy Nothing app. Buy Nothing Project, a public benefit corporation, reports having 14 million members across more than 50 countries who give away 2.6 million items a month. There are more than 100 groups in Los Angeles alone.

Buy Nothing reduces waste by keeping items out of landfills. It also builds community. When our lives are increasingly online, Buy Nothing encourages us to get out of our cars and make connections with neighbors, even if the interaction is no more than a wave when picking something up left by a doorstep. Researchers have found that even small social interactions can foster a sense of belonging.

Still, Buy Nothing has its challenges. For years, some have complained that the groups shouldn’t be limited to neighborhoods, but rather have more open borders. Last year, many longtime members complained about the project enforcing its trademark, leading Facebook to shut down unregistered groups even if they were serving people under economic strain. Critics saw the tattling as a shift from mutual aid toward control and branding. For its part, Buy Nothing says its decisions are based on building community, trust and safety.

Despite those disagreements, Buy Nothing offers a platform for special connections. As much as there are jokes about people offering half-eaten cake, many have passed along treasured items. Buy Nothing items may feel too valuable for the trash or too personal for Goodwill. The interaction between giver and receiver becomes just as meaningful as the object itself.

I set out to document these quiet exchanges in my Buy Nothing group, drawn to the question of why people choose to pass their belongings from one neighbor to another.

Tiny builders, big exchange

Lidia Butcher gives a toolbox and worktable her two sons used to Chelsea Ward for her 17-month-old son.

“We’ve had the toolbox and worktable for the last 10 years, it’s been very special. When I told my youngest son we were going to give it away, he was a little sad. He said he was still playing with it, but then I explained that it’s been sitting untouched for a year and that if we gave it to someone else, maybe someone else would be happy about it. So he felt joy about giving it to another child who would want to play with it. I have this little emotional feeling letting it go, but at the same time, it’s a good feeling. Like a new beginning.”

— Lidia Butcher, 35, joined the group several years ago when someone told her a person in the group once asked for a cup of sugar.

“We’re getting a worktable. Benji is now old enough to be interested in playing with tools. I’m going to move my drafting table out of his room. His bedroom is my office. So that will go into storage or the Buy Nothing group and the worktable will go in its place. We live in an apartment, and as he’s growing, his needs change but our space doesn’t. Buy Nothing is really helpful to be able to cycle out of stuff.”

— Chelsea Ward, 38, has found the Buy Nothing group extremely helpful since becoming a mom.

Something borrowed

Abby Rodriguez lends Sophie Janinet a veil for her wedding.

“Sophie had asked for a wedding veil on our Buy Nothing group and I’m lending it to her because I wanted it to have a second life. I hate the idea that precious things just sit there and never get touched. My wedding day was one of the best days of my life. At one point the power went out and now we have this amazing picture with my husband and I and everyone using their phone to light up the dance floor.”

— Abby Rodriguez, 40, discovered Buy Nothing when she moved to her northeast L.A. neighborhood in 2020.

“I moved to Los Angeles from France four years ago. The day I joined Buy Nothing was the first time I felt connected to the community. It played a huge role in my adapting to life here. I’m receiving a veil because I want my wedding to look and feel like my values. I thrifted my dress, I chose a local seamstress to alter the dress but when I tried it on, I felt something was missing. I wanted a veil but I didn’t want to buy new because I didn’t want to add anything to the landfill. So I posted a request for the veil on Buy Nothing.”

— Sophie Janinet, 37, is recreating the low-waste, slower-paced values she once lived by in France through her local Buy Nothing community.

2 Two women sit on steps with a fake owl.

1. Abby Rodriguez, left, holds her wedding veil that she is lending Sophie Janinet, right, for her upcoming wedding. 2. Michele Sawers, left stands with Beth Penn, right, while giving her a decorative owl.

A pigeon-spooking owl gets a second life

Michele Sawers gives Beth Penn a decorative owl.

“Coming from a place of luck, now I have plenty to give. The owl has been with me for 26 years. I bought the owl soon after I bought this house. The owl was purchased because I had a pigeon problem, they would camp out under my eves and I would have bird poop everywhere. The owl must have worked because they’re gone and they haven’t come back.”

— Michele Sawers, 58, uses Buy Nothing regularly to connect with her community and support her low-consumption values.

“There are things I don’t want to own. So borrowing those things on Buy Nothing is really nice. There is a person who I borrowed their cooler twice and their ladder twice so I feel like they are my neighbor even though they are not [right next door]. We get these birds that poop on the deck and the recommendation online was to get a fake owl. When it was posted on Buy Nothing, I thought, ‘I have to have that owl!’ It’s going to have a good home with me on the deck with some cats, a dog and some kids.”

— Beth Penn, 47, once helped build her local Buy Nothing group and now experiences it from the other side, as a member.

Stuffed toys find a new purpose

Two women stand in front of a green plant holding stuffed dolls and a bag of ball pit balls.

Magaly Leyva gives stuffed toys and plastic play balls to Tatiana Lonny.

“My mother-in-law gave the dolls and plastic play balls to my daughter, but she has so much. My daughter is not going to play with them with the same intent that another kid would, because she’s really little. I’d rather another kid use these things.”

— Magaly Leyva, 35, joined Buy Nothing nearly four years ago to find clothes for her nephew.

“I’m taking these new items to a township called Langa in South Africa. I know the kids there will be so happy. They have so little there. I’m doing this all by myself, I’m just collecting a GoFundMe for the suitcase fee at the airport.”

— Tatiana Lonny, 51, began using Buy Nothing in hopes of finding resources to support the animals she rescues.

A second helping

Laura Cherkas gives Aurora Sanchez a cast iron pan.

“Buy Nothing gives me the freedom to let go of things because I know that they will stay in the community and the neighborhood. I’m giving a couple of cast iron items that my husband and I got when we were on a cast iron kick, probably during COVID. We determined that we don’t actually use these particular pans and they were just making our drawers heavy. So we decided to let someone else get some use out of them.

“I hate throwing things away. I want to see things have another life. Sometimes I take things to a donation center, but I like the personal connection with Buy Nothing and that you know that there is someone who definitely wants your item.”

— Laura Cherkas, 40, has built connections with other moms through Buy Nothing and values it as a way to cycle toys in and out for her child.

Two women stand by a gate at night holding cast iron pans.

“I wanted a cast iron pan because I cook a lot of grilled meat. I’m excited to try this style of cooking out and it will help me when I cook for only one or two people. I got lucky because I was chosen to receive it.”

— Aurora Sanchez, 54, has spent the past two years engaging with Buy Nothing, finding in it a sense of neighborly support that makes her feel valued while strengthening her connection to the community.

Next player up

A man poses next to a basketball hoop in front of his garage.

Joe Zeni first offered a basketball hoop on Buy Nothing in 2023, where it remains unclaimed.

“I’m giving away a Huffy basketball freestanding hoop because it’s just taking up space. We used to play horse and shoot baskets together. My son is now 35, he doesn’t live here anymore.”

— Joe Zeni, 70, uses Buy Nothing often to give items away, believing many of the things he no longer needs still have purpose.

Lifestyle

Armani Goes Back to the Archive

Published

23 hours ago

April 21, 2026

Press Room

In the year since his death, there has been no hard pivot at Armani. The shadow of the founder has stayed in place over the Milan HQ, where the brand seems happy to leave it. Armani is not just plumbing the past for continued inspiration, it’s reselling it.

Today, Giorgio Armani is announcing Archivio, a grouping of 13 men’s and women’s looks, plucked from the brand’s back catalog and remade for today. (And, yes, at today’s prices.) There’s a jacket in pinstriped alpaca of 1979 vintage; a buttery one-and-a-half breasted jacket with a maitre d’s flair that first appeared in 1987; and an unstructured silk-linen suit that will activate ’90s flashbacks for die-hard Armani clients and those who want to capture that era’s nostalgia. The advertising campaign was shot and styled by Eli Russell Linnetz, who has his own label, ERL, but always seems to be the first call brands make when they want sultry photos with the aura of Details magazine circa 1995. (He did a similar thing for Guess recently.)

Linnetz’s images are a reminder of how Armani’s work still reverberates decades later.

Archivio is also a canny recognition of what shoppers crave now. On the resale market, Armani wares are as coveted as can be. Every week it seems as if I get an email from Ndwc0, a British vintage store, announcing a new drop of meaty-shouldered ’90s Armani power suits. They sell for less than $500. At Sorbara’s in Brooklyn, you can buy a tan Giorgio Armani vest for $225.

That vintage-mad audience is in Armani’s sights: To introduce the collection, it’s staging an installation, opening today, at Giorgio Armani’s Milan boutique. It will feature the hosts of “Throwing Fits,” a New York-based podcast whose hosts wear vintage Armani button-ups and shout out stores like Sorbara’s.

It’s prudent, if a bit disconnected. Part of the charm of old Armani is that it can be found on the cheap. I’m wearing a pair of vintage Giorgio Armani corduroys as I write this. I bought them for $76 on eBay. Archivio is reverent, but its prices, which range from $1,025 to $12,000, may scare off shoppers willing to do the searching themselves.

If you ask me, the next frontier of this archive fixation is that a brand — and a big one — will release a mountain of genuine vintage pieces. J. Crew and Banana Republic have tried this at a small scale, but a luxury house like Armani hasn’t gone there. Yet. Eventually, Armani (or a brand like it) is going to grab hold of the market that exists around its brand, but through which it gets no cut.