Introduction
Why are people with obsessive natures often drawn to both wine and art? How does strategic snobbery create deliberate barriers to entry into the art and wine worlds? What does it mean to stay in the work or to stay with the wine?
In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I’m chatting with author Bianca Bosker.
You can find the wines we discussed here.
Giveaway
Three of you will win a copy of Bianca Bosker’s terrific new book Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See.
How to Win
To qualify, all you have to do is email me at [email protected] and let me know that you’ve posted a review of the podcast.
It takes less than 30 seconds: On your phone, scroll to the bottom here, where the reviews are, and click on “Tap to Rate.”
After that, scroll down a tiny bit more and click on “Write a Review.” That’s it!
I’ll choose one person randomly from those who contact me.
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I’ll be jumping into the comments as we watch it together so that I can answer your questions in real-time.
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Highlights
- Which cities has Bianca visited so far on her book tour?
- What has Bianca found to be the top marketing strategies for her book?
- Are art-world people more or less obsessive than wine-world people?
- Why are people with obsessive natures drawn to art and wine?
- How did getting into artists’ studios transform the way Bianca looks at art?
- What does it mean to “stay in the work”?
- How does strategic snobbery create deliberate barriers to entry into the art and wine industries?
- Is there really a need for complex terminology and flowery language in describing wine?
- How has art speak evolved to become less descriptive and more exclusionary?
- Why does Bianca differentiate between the logic behind wine descriptions and art speak?
- What’s behind the art world’s suspicion of beautiful things and are there parallels in the wine world?
- How do art and wine help us to discover and appreciate beauty in the everyday?
Key Takeaways
- Why are people with obsessive natures often drawn to both wine and art? Bianca observed an all-consuming passion and intensity in both worlds. As she says: “I’d never met a group of people willing to sacrifice so much for something of so little obvious practical value.” Perhaps part of it is these are worlds where people are not necessarily in it for the money. There has to be something else that’s pulling you through it. I also think these are both worlds where you can go deep, like there’s kind of an endless amount of information that you can learn. I also think that these are worlds that are not purely bloodless, intellectual pursuits. They are both in their own way, hedonistic. They really sort of involve all of us – our minds, and our bodies.
- How does strategic snobbery create deliberate barriers to entry into the art and wine worlds? Bianca explains that it exists to keep out the “Joe Schmoes.” She began to understand that the language is one of these constructions that exists to distinguish you as someone that does or does not get it. She thinks a lot of tasting notes have spiralled out into the universe. The origins of the tasting notes was an effort to develop a shared vocabulary. She believes there’s something admirable about the spirit of that. But she also thinks artspeak exists not for clear communication.
- What does it mean to “stay in the work” or in the wine? She advises to slow down, absorb it. It’s also what I teach my online wine and food pairing students. The difference between tasting and drinking is spitting and thinking – stay with it. Think about what you’re experiencing and what you’re tasting. While it is subjective, I agree with Bianca that you can apply some analysis to better understand and appreciate both wine and art.
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About Bianca Bosker
Bianca Bosker is the author of the New York Times bestselling books Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See and Cork Dork. A contributing writer at The Atlantic, she has also written for publications such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Her work has been recognized with awards from the New York Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, and more, and has been included in The Best American Travel Writing.
Resources
- Connect with Bianca Bosker
- Diary of a Book Launch: An Insider Peek from Idea to Publication
- Wine Witch on Fire Free Companion Guide for Book Clubs
- My Books:
- Unreserved Wine Talk | Episode 7: Wine Confidential: An Insider Look at the Wine World with Bianca Bosker
- My new class The 5 Wine & Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner And How To Fix Them Forever
Tag Me on Social
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- @nataliemaclean on Twitter
- @nataliemacleanwine on Instagram
- @nataliemaclean on LinkedIn
- Email Me at [email protected]
Thirsty for more?
- Sign up for my free online wine video class where I’ll walk you through The 5 Wine & Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner (and how to fix them forever!)
- You’ll find my books here, including Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines and Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass.
- The new audio edition of Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass is now available on Amazon.ca, Amazon.com and other country-specific Amazon sites; iTunes.ca, iTunes.com and other country-specific iTunes sites; Audible.ca and Audible.com.
Transcript
Bianca Bosker (00:00:00) – In both wine world and the art world. There is this magnetic passion that drew me in. It was this all consuming passion that people had for something that I did not understand, and something about their obsession nudged me into a place where I really had a sort of identity crisis, where I felt like I might be living my life all wrong. Art didn’t make sense to me. Wine didn’t make sense to me. I’d never met a group of people willing to sacrifice so much for something of so little obvious practical value.
Natalie MacLean (00:00:36) – Then the art world, people. So are you saying they’re more obsessive than the wine world people?
Bianca Bosker (00:00:41) – I think it’s so hard to compare. I mean, it’s sort of like you’re taking an Olympic swimmer and Olympic runner and being like, which is faster. It’s like they’re both really fast, just in different modes. They’re both utterly fascinating.
Natalie MacLean (00:01:03) – Do you have a thirst to learn about wine? Do you love stories about wonderfully obsessive people, hauntingly beautiful places, and amusingly awkward social situations? Well, that’s the blend here on the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast.
Natalie MacLean (00:01:20) – I’m your host, Natalie MacLean, and each week I share with you unfiltered conversations with celebrities in the wine world, as well as confessions from my own tipsy journey as I write my third book on this subject. I’m so glad you’re here. Now pass me that bottle, please, and let’s get started. Welcome to episode 285. Why are some people with obsessive natures often drawn to both wine and art? How does strategic snobbery create deliberate barriers to entry in the art and wine worlds? And what does it mean to stay in the work or stay with the wine? In today’s episode, you’ll hear the stories and tips that answer those questions in our chat with Bianca Bhasker, author of The New York Times best selling books. Get the Picture? A mind bending journey among the inspired artists and obsessive art fiends who taught me how to see and Cork Dork. A wine fueled adventure among the obsessive sommeliers, big bottle hunters and rogue scientists who taught me to live for taste. Three of you are going to win a copy of Bianca’s terrific new book.
Natalie MacLean (00:02:42) – Get the picture? All you have to do is email me at Natalie at Natalie MacLean dot com, and let me know that you’d like to win a copy. I’ll choose three people randomly from those who contact me. I also still have two copies from last week’s guest, Barbara Scott Goodman. Her book, Wine Bites on Wine and Food pairing with recipes to Give away. Again, just email me at Natalie at Natalie MacLean dot com. If you haven’t won a book yet, now’s your chance and keep listening, as my goal is to offer lots more books and other prizes. With every episode, you can qualify no matter where you live. Speaking of books, I’ve just started recording the audio version of wine, which on fire, rising from the ashes of divorce, defamation and drinking too much. I’m working with Tandoor Media, one of the largest producers of audio books in the US and the world. It wasn’t guaranteed that I would get to narrate the book, as they often hire actors or professional narrators, so I had to audition.
Natalie MacLean (00:03:46) – Fortunately, they’re giving me the chance to do this. When I recorded my first book, Red, White and Drunk All Over, I went into a local studio for two hours at a time, which I found grueling. You may not think of constantly talking for two hours is difficult, but once you get past 30 minutes, your mouth and throat start going dry. It becomes easier to lose focus and to start mispronouncing words or stumbling over them. Ask my beautiful, wonderful, patient podcast editor Alex about this. Thank you Alex. Professional voice actors and narrators have the vocal athleticism to record for 6 to 8 hours in a stretch. Hats off. Glasses up to them. Wow. However, because wine, which is such a personal story, I wanted to be the one to tell it, I guess I should say speak it. I know where to infuse emotion. Oh, no. And what’s meant to be funny, whether it is or not, is another story. Recording this book is much more humane, since I’m able to do it where I record this podcast in my home office.
Natalie MacLean (00:04:52) – So my daily routine is to record for about an hour each morning to keep my voice fresh and my energy high. I have until the end of May completed, so fingers crossed the sessions will continue to go well. I’ll share more behind the scenes updates next week. Speaking of wine, which, have you read the paperback or e-book? If yes, well then, have you bought a copy for a friend or family member? Please do. If you’d like to support this podcast that I do for you on a volunteer basis to ensure it continues. You can order it for yourself or someone else from any online book retailer now, no matter where you live. It usually arrives in a day or two. And of course, the e-book is instant. It’s a fast read. Every little bit helps spread the message in this book of hope, justice, and resilience. You can send a copy directly to a friend or family member via the online retailer, and make their day when a gift arrives in the mail, rather than another bill.
Natalie MacLean (00:05:49) – I’ll put a link in the show notes to all retailers worldwide at Natalie MacLean dot com. Forward slash 285. I also offer a free companion guide that has book, club and wine group discussion questions that can also spark a conversation between two friends or a partner spouse. It asks questions such as how you feel about your own relationship with wine, especially post-pandemic marketing tactics towards women and men and how they differ, and whether social media is still a good place to connect with others, among lots of other questions. The guide also has wine recommendations, pairings and tips for organizing your own informal wine tasting. And you can get it at wine which on fire. Com. If you’ve read the book or are reading it, I’d love to hear from you. If your book club or wine group plans to read it, let me know if you’d like me to join in via zoom. I also have a summary sheet that you can send to your book club wine group members who are deciding on upcoming books. Pick me, pick me.
Natalie MacLean (00:06:49) – Email me at Natalie at Natalie MacLean dot com. Okay, I’m with the show. The Aga. Bhaskar is the author of The New York Times best selling books, Get the Picture? A mind bending journey among the inspired artists and obsessive art fiends who taught Me how to see and Cork Dork. A wine fueled adventure among the obsessive sommeliers, big bottle hunters and rogue scientists who taught me how to live for taste. A contributing writer to The Atlantic. She has also written for publications such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Her work has been recognized with awards from the New York Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, and others, and has been included in the Best American Travel Writing. And she joins us now from New York City. Welcome, Bianca. It’s so great to have you here with us.
Bianca Bosker (00:07:43) – Thank you so much for having me. I’m so happy to be here.
Natalie MacLean (00:07:46) – Oh, absolutely. And we spoke five years ago for Cork Dork. So I’m really interested in this latest book.
Natalie MacLean (00:07:52) – And although it’s not about wine, we are going to pursue it right back to wine anyway.
Bianca Bosker (00:07:57) – Fantastic.
Natalie MacLean (00:07:58) – So congratulations on hitting the New York Times bestseller list again with this book. That is amazing and so well deserved. You’re on book tour now. How many cities have you visited and how many more to go?
Bianca Bosker (00:08:10) – Oh, that’s a good question. How many have I been to? I mean, I guess ten, a dozen, I’m not sure, but it’s been a blast. Yeah, it’s, you know, I’ve been everywhere from Portland, Oregon, my hometown. Whereas Powell’s Books, which I think it was one of my parents, you know, Houston, Austin, Miami, obviously New York City. I’ll be heading to D.C. in a couple of weeks. So, you know, just kind of keeping the party going as much as possible.
Natalie MacLean (00:08:36) – Well, let’s hope a Canadian city might get added to that tour, given the success of the book, I.
Bianca Bosker (00:08:41) – Hope so too.
Natalie MacLean (00:08:43) – Please let us know.
Natalie MacLean (00:08:44) – We’ll be there. What are the top three things you found most effective in marketing this book? Of course I am asking for a friend. Yeah.
Bianca Bosker (00:08:52) – You know, I think that with book marketing, it’s sort of amazing to me how much it continues to be a little bit of a black box. Like, I have been asking everyone I can get Ahold of that same question. And I think the answer I get is like, you just have to try everything and do everything. I mean, I can tell you that I am someone who says yes to everything. I feel like someone once told me, you sell one copy at a time. And so if anyone gives me the opportunity or is interested in hearing about the book where I’m doing, yes, I will be there. I will be at your book club, I will be on your podcast. I will, you know, be on your Substack. Like whatever it is, I really am so excited about those opportunities and really grateful for them.
Bianca Bosker (00:09:32) – I mean, I will tell you, as you probably know, and I think a lot of people know, like I’ve basically emailed everybody that I know about the book, I’m like, yeah, I want you to know I care. I’m excited. I genuinely believe that people’s lives will be worse off if they don’t read it. And I also feel like a lot of us, you know, we get daily emails from, I don’t know, OpenTable or food delivery services. Like, I can send you two emails about a project that’s taken years of my life, so hopefully people aren’t too annoyed. But that’s been sort of my philosophy.
Natalie MacLean (00:10:01) – Agree 100%. And how many book clubs have you zoomed in to approximately? Do you know?
Bianca Bosker (00:10:06) – I don’t know, but I always try my best. You know, if the schedule is permit, I’m supposed to go to my neighbors next week. So there.
Natalie MacLean (00:10:15) – You go. Yeah, even neighbors count. Yeah, absolutely. I’m zooming into one tonight. But yeah, the book clubs are an amazing way.
Natalie MacLean (00:10:21) – Okay, we’ll get back to the topic here now that I’ve had my free consulting moment. So thank you for that. Now you say that it’s the people in the art world who drew you to this story. And I love how you described one artist as, quote, kissing at the poor quality grommets at a competing gallery that they were using to hang their paintings. It’s so telling just that even that one word obsessive is in the subtitle of both your books. Do you find art world people more obsessive or less than wine world people? Why? Why not?
Bianca Bosker (00:10:52) – Yeah, so you’re totally right to hop on that through line. I mean, I think as I write in Cork Dork, like I am someone obsessed with obsession. And I think in both worlds and the wine world and the art world, you know, there is this just magnetic passion that drew me in. And I think in particular, in both cases, it was this all consuming passion that people had for something that I did not understand.
Bianca Bosker (00:11:20) – And something about their obsession nudged me into a place where I really had a sort of identity crisis where I felt like, you know, I think I might be living my life all wrong. You know, art didn’t make sense to me. Wine didn’t make sense to me. And that disconnect between what I was observing and my own sort of inability to figure out why these things were such big deals to people, really launched me on these journeys to understand these worlds. And so, you know, I think that in art’s case, you know, art had been a passion of mine growing up. But by the time I kind of got to be, you know, in my 30s. We were not on speaking terms. I think for most of my adult life I felt like I didn’t know how to do art. And as you said, the art itself was very befuddling to me. And even as I tried, reconnecting really left me cold. But it was the intensity of the people within it that intrigued me.
Bianca Bosker (00:12:16) – You know, I’d never met a group of people willing to sacrifice so much for something of so little obvious, practical value.
Natalie MacLean (00:12:22) – Then the art world people. So are you saying they’re more obsessive than the wine world people? I think it’s so.
Bianca Bosker (00:12:28) – Hard to compare. I mean, it’s sort of like you’re taking an Olympic swimmer and Olympic runner and being like, which is faster. It’s like they’re both really fast, just a different modes, you know? So I just think that both of them have this to me, really magnetic obsession. But it’s sort of hard to quantify like which is more intense. They’re both, to me, utterly fascinating. And personally, we’re all consuming.
Natalie MacLean (00:12:52) – Now, I know you’re not a psychoanalyst, but why do you think the obsessive natures are drawn to these two worlds?
Bianca Bosker (00:12:59) – I love that question. I think it’s a really, really interesting one. I mean, I think, you know, perhaps part of it is these are worlds where people are not necessarily in general like in it for the money.
Bianca Bosker (00:13:13) – Right? I mean, I think there has to be something else that’s pulling you through it. I also think these are both worlds where you can go deep, like there’s kind of an endless amount of information that you can learn. I also think that these are worlds that are not purely sort of bloodless intellectual pursuits. They are both, in their own way, hedonistic, right? They really sort of involve all of us. They involve our minds and they involve our bodies. And that was something that took me a while to arrive at with the art world. You know, I think that for the last hundred years or so, we’ve been told that what really matters about an artwork is the idea behind it, like the thought trumps the thing. And Marcel Duchamp sort of arguably kicked us off on that path. When he took a urinal, it was credited with taking a urinal, putting it on a pedestal, and telling us that it was art. And he was a big proponent for the idea of art that tickled the mind, but not necessarily the eye.
Bianca Bosker (00:14:11) – He sort of was dismissive of what he termed retinal art, which was kind of included the whole band of Impressionism. But, you know, I think when we go to a lot of galleries and museums, there’s a lot of hushed murmuring about, you know, dead philosophers and ideas and dichotomies and liminal this, liminal that. And what was so fascinating to me in such a breakthrough for me in my relationship with art, was actually getting into artist studios and realizing the way that art making is a deeply physical process, right? It is almost a blood sport in the way that wine is too, right?
Natalie MacLean (00:14:44) – Well, you’re stretching canvases and totally.
Bianca Bosker (00:14:47) – And I think for me, it was a lesson in the way that artists look in art. And when artists I worked for Julie Curtis, as she put, you know, an idea is not a painting. Painting is constant decision making. And I think working for artists was, for me, this revolution, the way I saw art, but also in the way I saw the world.
Bianca Bosker (00:15:04) – And part of what it taught me when it came to art was to slow down, to look at the physical form of the work and to examine the the decisions that an artist makes. And I think that that can lead us to having a really heady experience. But the experience of looking at art, I think, is really almost like, you know, being with another person. You’re two bodies in space, and there’s a totally different connection that you have when you just let yourself have this physical experience and recognize that, like being around people, it’s totally different to be face to face with an artwork than it is to, you know, see it remotely or digitally.
Natalie MacLean (00:15:41) – On the internet. Yeah. And you say it’s a series of decisions again, because I’m going to keep bringing it back. But wine making too is a series of decisions, as is wine tasting. I mean, there’s just so much that goes into it. Which grapes are the plant? What’s the orientation? You know, southeast exposure, which barrels? How long are we going to let them hang on the vines and so on.
Natalie MacLean (00:16:00) – It is like a multitude of decisions. I just see so much in that. You were kind of getting to it there, but you have a wonderful phrase that says stay in the work, like slow down, absorb it. I mean, it’s what I teach my online wine and food pairing students. You know, the difference between tasting and drinking is spitting and thinking. Stay with it. Think about what you’re experiencing, what you’re tasting. It is subjective, but I think you can put some analysis to it. What do you mean by stay in the work?
Bianca Bosker (00:16:30) – In the work? Yeah, stay in the work. No, that’s exactly it. Yeah. Well I mean to back up a bit, I think when I was training as a sommelier for the journey that became Cork Dork, you know, I was doing a lot of blind tasting. And when you’re blind tasting, you have this glass of wine, and you have to figure out what grape it was made with, where in the world it was made when it was made.
Bianca Bosker (00:16:53) – And you really have to do that based solely on that thing. In front of you. And, you know, I think that process for me was really a lesson in staying true to your own felt experience of something like, there’s so much that’s designed to play to our sensory biases, but when you’re blind tasting, when you’re like mano a mano with that glass of wine, you have to dismiss things like price or that little voice in your head that’s like, don’t miss, gotta be Chardonnay. You always miss Chardonnay. All that stuff is not helpful. And it was really offputting and surprising to me as I embarked on this journey into the art world, was it couldn’t have been more different. Like the philosophy on bonding with an artwork couldn’t have been more opposite to that. This journey for me into the art world was really about developing what artists call visual literacy. It’s about developing an eye. For me, it was about, you know, how could I not just stare in an artwork’s direction, but really see it, have a conversation with it? And as I was trying to develop my eye, I realized that so many of these art experts spent surprisingly little time discussing the merits of the artworks themselves.
Bianca Bosker (00:18:00) – And instead they ask questions like, where did the artists go to school? You know who else owns the work? What gallery has shown it? Who are they sleeping with? All of that information in the art world is referred to as context. Context is like the web of names around an artist, the sort of social cachet. And so it felt like I said, this real kind of culture shock for me. I felt like the wine world had encouraged me to, again, really stay present in that experience and dismiss all those things that are designed to play to our biases. Whereas the art world was like, no, no, no. What you are experiencing person to person with an artwork isn’t so important compared to context. You know, and context really seem to shape art connoisseurs opinion of the work even more than the thing itself. And I will say that that emphasis on context didn’t sit well with me. I think it felt like I was being encouraged to outsource my eye to the hive mind.
Bianca Bosker (00:18:50) – And it also felt like one more way to exclude people from the art world, because I think these connoisseurs become so much more important if we’re told that we need years of going to art fairs, you know, vast familiarity with artists biographies and advanced degree and so on and so forth to commune with the painting.
Natalie MacLean (00:19:08) – Well, it’s similar to in wine in that some buyers rely on scores or the latest prices at auctions, and that’s how they stock their sellers rather than what do I actually like to drink? Totally.
Bianca Bosker (00:19:19) – And so I think stay in the work for me was kind of advice that I arrived at as I started working at other galleries, getting deeper into the world, spending more time with artists. And I think that, you know, artists do have this ability to stay in the work. And I think one advice that I got from an artist that I found very helpful and yet obviously simple, was she told me to when you see an artwork, just try and notice five things about it. And those don’t have to be grandiose.
Bianca Bosker (00:19:46) – It does not have to be. You know, this is a meditation on social hierarchies and class relations and the years following the French Revolution. It could just be like this pink makes me want to lick it. Or like, this hand will not let me look away. And I guess if I could try and extrapolate, maybe some similarities with wine tasting is that it’s just noticing, but it’s also kind of putting language on that experience. And I think that noticing those five things is a pathway into the piece, much in the way that part of that process of noticing means, like I said before, paying attention to the artist’s decisions. And yeah, I think that perhaps similarly with blind tasting, a real breakthrough I had in that case was just learning to put names on smells. We smell a lot of odors. Most of us do not have a lot of experience or comfort actually putting language on those smells. And that’s absolutely crucial, as you know, for wine tasting.
Natalie MacLean (00:20:41) – Excellent. Absolutely. To be able to discuss it, to name something is to, well, not have power over it, but at least a familiarity.
Natalie MacLean (00:20:49) – And someone said, I can’t remember, but the extent of my language is the extent of my understanding of the world or something. The limits of my language limits my world. I forget what it was. But I do believe that, you know, words have power and naming things and so on. But there’s also, of course, geek speak in both worlds. The you called international art speak. And then there’s wine geek speak and the strategic snobbery as you describe. I love that for keeping people in and out with these code words. Do you think, though, that that language, once we start describing things, can be also very reductive?
Bianca Bosker (00:21:21) – The arts speak is, I think, part of an arsenal of tools that I began to realize was part of, like I said, the strategic snobbery or the very deliberate barriers to entry that existed to keep out the quote unquote, Joe Schmo, which was one gallerists term for general Public Corp. talk really convinced me in the value of learning by doing. And so just to give readers context or listeners context as part of my journey into the art world, I was really determined to get inside and get in the middle of the action and actually go and work in the art world.
Bianca Bosker (00:21:55) – And so that kicked off this five year journey, and that involved me, you know, selling art galleries, working in artists studios, guarding museum wings as a security guard, embedding with collectors and curators, all part of this journey to understand, like, why does art matter and how do we engage with it more deeply? And speaking of deliberate barriers to entry, at the outset, I was really just surprised by how hard it was to get access that people did not want to talk to me. They did not respond by emails. You know, they gave me threats, warnings. They were like, you know, do not follow through on this plan if you want to keep living in New York City. And then once I got further in and actually started working as a gallery assistant, I began to understand that, yes, the language is sort of one of these techniques and one of these constructions, I guess I would say that exists, sort of distinguish you as someone that does or does not get it.
Bianca Bosker (00:22:44) – I think obviously I write about tasting notes and cork talk. I was very interested as a writer, especially in the whole language around wine, and I think that I’m a bit more forgiving. I think of, well, I have my own issues with tasting notes. I think a lot of tasting notes have sort of spiraled out into the universe. And yet I think that there was a period of time in wine where there was an effort to rein that in. And so a lot of really the origins of the tasting notes that we use to describe wine was an effort to actually bring that language back down to earth and encourage us to use a shared vocabulary where we would talk about wines not as terms of being masculine or feminine or holding to the blood of their class, but instead, you know, smelling like white flowers, smelling like orange peel apple. I mean, things that any of us could find in a supermarket and sort of train ourselves on. And so I think that there’s some of that language can become ridiculous.
Bianca Bosker (00:23:44) – But I think that there’s something admirable about the spirit of how do we come up with a shared vocabulary, how do we come up with the shared alphabet? And so I think art speak bothers me because I think it, you know, exists not for clear communication, like there’s a study of press releases in the art world that found that the words spatial and non-spatial get used interchangeably. If you’re not familiar with art speak, it’s basically this idea that the bigger the word, the longer the sentence, the better. I mean, these days, to sound like you know, something about art, the trick is basically to sound like a French professor who’s been the victim of a terrible translation job.
Natalie MacLean (00:24:20) – I must share with you your own sentence that. Oh, I’ll get it wrong if I can’t find my notes. But one of my favorite things that you said was people in the art world sound like.
Bianca Bosker (00:24:29) – They’re trapped in dictionaries and being forced to chew their way out. Yeah. Oh, I love that.
Natalie MacLean (00:24:34) – Oh, my God, that is so good and so evocative.
Bianca Bosker (00:24:37) – You know, I was told when I was working, I was like, you don’t say a work is sold. It’s placed. You know, I mean, it’s not a website, it’s an online viewing room.
Natalie MacLean (00:24:44) – And what are indexical markings?
Bianca Bosker (00:24:46) – The indexical marks of the artist’s body? Yes. It would be finger painting to the rest of us. Yeah. So I think that there’s certainly times where there’s, I think an overly complex terminology in the wine world. And yet I think there are times where I forgive it at times because I think the specificity of language allows us to be sure that we are talking about the same things, the idea of describing the rotunda and smells of a wine. I think as long as you’re using it in a accurate way, as opposed to just trying to sound fancy.
Natalie MacLean (00:25:18) – What is even that this Arctic.
Bianca Bosker (00:25:21) – Compound that exists in black pepper, for example, but can also exist in Syrah grapes. And so there’s a certain logic for saying, you know, sort of helps explain why we describe black pepper.
Bianca Bosker (00:25:33) – Shiraz is often smelling like black pepper because they can actually have a similar chemical compound as black pepper. Wow.
Natalie MacLean (00:25:40) – It reminds me of petrichor that smell right before a rainstorm.
Bianca Bosker (00:25:43) – Yes, which I love. Patrick Harris yes, not less scientific, but so beautiful. I was thinking about this morning when I walked out after a rainstorm and I was like, love it. What’s better than Petrichor, my friend?
Natalie MacLean (00:25:58) – Yeah, yeah, yeah, for the air war. Okay, sorry. Go back to what you were saying about the art. Speak. You find it more exclusionary?
Bianca Bosker (00:26:09) – Yeah, I do, I mean, I think I was funny, I was doing a radio interview and someone actually called in and mounted a defensive art speak, which I’d never heard before. And they’re like, every field has their own vocabulary. And I think, yes, but do we really think that legalese is doing the world any good? And doctors, I would excuse because I was like, you know, I want my physician to be very specific about the organ that they are removing, right? Or like, I’m willing to forget that.
Natalie MacLean (00:26:34) – It’s spatially around your spleen.
Bianca Bosker (00:26:37) – Like, I think you need some technical terms to be sure that, you know, we’re very clear on like what exactly is going on, what we’re diagnosing. But I mean, I think that it feels alienating. I find it alienating at least. I mean, I find that oftentimes, you know, I ended up, as I said, working as a security guard at an art museum. And I spent a lot of time reading the wall texts, the sort of paragraph long explanation that exists, you know, next to a lot of artworks. And I felt like I was the world’s hardest reading comprehension exam. I spent hours reading some of these labels, and I still don’t know what they said. And I think that part of that also led to me kind of disowning them as a tool that was necessary for looking at art. I mean, I used to go to galleries and museums, and I felt like it was downright rude when they didn’t have a wall label for each work.
Bianca Bosker (00:27:24) – I was like, how am I supposed to know what I’m looking at? Unless you explain it to me using words? And as I began to work as a guard, I actually got to the point where I was standing in front of the wall labels so people couldn’t read them. I was that asshole because I felt like they limited people’s interpretations. You know? I think people could come at pieces to me, very confusing and very ungenerous, as art critics would say. And even though they didn’t know the artist or hadn’t seen the piece before, if they let themselves, would have these incredible journeys with the work. I loved standing with visitors and challenging them. I was like, what do you see in this piece? And we would travel the world and we traveled through space and time, standing in front of these pieces when they let themselves go to those places. And I think wall text, I think, is written in a language that’s needlessly dense, but can also suggest they’re sort of one right answer to looking at an artwork, which is certainly not the case.
Natalie MacLean (00:28:17) – That’s true. And there is some parallel there with blind tasting and not being influenced by the label. And then by extension, you know, the price or the producer or whatever, just experiencing the wine for what it is and what it means to you, perhaps.
Bianca Bosker (00:28:31) – Absolutely. I have a very vivid memory of being at a blind tasting the bunch of psalms, and I remember one of them was like, I think it’s Zinfandel, but I hate Zinfandel, and I like this wine, you know? So and afterwards she learned it was actually Zinfandel. She was like, wow, I might actually to put this Zinfandel on the menu or on my list, right? And I just think that that was, for me, just a moment that really stuck with me about the value of blind tasting in encouraging us to.
Natalie MacLean (00:28:58) – Lift our filters, as you say, about art as well get away from reductionism and all the complacency, as you say. Yeah, I loved all the insights about art, of course, putting them back onto wine.
Natalie MacLean (00:29:10) – But you say there’s a suspicion in the art world of something that’s pretty. Does that remind you at all of the sort of pendulum swing? Away from sort of, I don’t know, pretty whines to the funky, foxy, sometimes flawed characters of natural wine as being a virtue, or even that barnyard smell that can come from Brettanomyces in Burgundy Pinot noir.
Bianca Bosker (00:29:33) – I think that’s a really interesting question to ask. And an interesting parallel. I mean, I will say that I think that the art world is suspicious of beauty, and it’s not just the art world. I think that a lot of sort of polite society. Yeah, I just think that it goes beyond that. I think a lot of polite society has a real suspicion of beauty. And there’s well, I think there’s a sense that it’s passe, that it is corrupting, that it’s, you know, sort of like falling for its charms is somehow the sign of moral weakness. And I think, is it because it’s easy? I mean, I think the origins of this suspicion of beauty started about a century ago, after sort of the horrors of World War One.
Bianca Bosker (00:30:16) – There was this sense that embracing beauty was frivolous, like the world was too messed up. There were these bigger problems we had to deal with, and beauty was just sort of too frivolous of a concern for this crazy, disturbed moment that art kind of should be, and other things should really be more philosophical. And so I think that what I will say is that I was very clear to me from the get go that there was, I think, within circles of the art world, this tendency to treat enemy beauty as the sworn enemy. And what I found as I got further in was that I think beauty is not optional. I think beauty is absolutely essential. And I think beauty with art, we can begin to see beauty in so many more places than we did before. As you alluded to before. I mean, I think I sort of had these pair of breakthroughs. I think I had always saw as also something kind of a luxury. I mean, it can’t, you know, house you, feed you or be used to kill predators.
Bianca Bosker (00:31:14) – And I think with art, you know, we hear so much about the sort of rarefied activities, these big prices, these big names. As I got further in, I began to realize, I understand now why art artists and scientists argue is a fundamental part of our humanity. And as you said before, I began to understand the ways that art plays this absolutely crucial function of helping us fight the reducing tendencies of our minds. I’m going to bring it back to beauty. But just to explain that idea for a second, you know, when we look at the world, we do not see it like video cameras, right? We do not dispassionately, accurately record the scenes around us. Our brains are really these trash compactors. We evolved, you know, to sort of oversimplify the world because we need to be able to see, like a lion moving in the bush to come out and get us. Unfortunately, that hasn’t really changed. And so as we look out on the world, we have these filters of expectations that descend to sort of preemptively organize, sort, prioritize, dismiss all the raw data coming in even before we get the full picture.
Bianca Bosker (00:32:14) – And I think what art can do, scientists and artists argue, is help us yank off those filters of expectation. A bit like dreams, right? Like they introduce a glitch. It’s a glitch that is a gift, one that helps our minds jump the curb sort of question its assumptions. I mean, vision is really a hallucination. So much of the reality that we experience is sort of our own construction and belief. And I think what art can do is help us remove those filters of expectations. So we’re seeing the world in a way that lets in more information, more nuance, and ultimately more beauty. And so when I say that art can help us discover beauty in places that we never did before, I think it can let us look with fresh eyes, with a fresh brain on the everyday. Like I loved the way that artists were able to really see art in something as sort of quotidian as like a sewage treatment plant or a motorcycle. And I think what they have this ability to do is sort of look at the everyday with an art mindset, sort of look at something.
Bianca Bosker (00:33:19) – I experience this after working at the Guggenheim, I started sort of looking at everything from like a toothbrush to a hot dog cart, like it was a sculpture. It was sort of with this extra beat, this willingness to linger on. How did it get to be this way? And so I think for me, it led me to really open up my idea and definition of what beauty is. And I think beauty does not have to be the kind of visual equivalent of a vanilla cupcake. To me, beauty is really just something that draws us closer to it, makes us curious, makes us want to linger with it, study it, examine it, be around it. It sort of nudges us into this place where we’re wondering about the world and our place in it. And so to bring it back to wine, I mean, I think that perhaps there’s something in which I think there’s a lot of different things that bring people to funky wines. But I also think that perhaps what it might be is for some people that they’re discovering a beauty in them that they didn’t perhaps appreciate before.
Bianca Bosker (00:34:18) – Through sustained time, with wines, with tasting, they’re sort of opening themselves up to finding what they consider beauty in different places.
Natalie MacLean (00:34:27) – And a new taste experience. I mean, there’s a whole range, as you know, with wine, so we can lift those filters to from vanilla Chardonnays and cabernets.
Bianca Bosker (00:34:37) – Yeah, I think that there was an artist, Julia Curtis, that I worked for, who really encouraged me to think of taste less as a destination than as a journey. And I think that for me, I’ve always been at this mindset that I had to find the right tastes. I had to figure out what was good, what was bad. And I think a lot of us perhaps, you know, share that idea. But also, I think a lot of us where our tastes as this sort of ironclad identity, it’s like we are a person that likes natural wines. We are a person that only drinks California Chardonnays. We are a person who exclusively listens to country music, and I think that we oftentimes are very loathe to question our tastes, to challenge our taste.
Bianca Bosker (00:35:19) – And I think I’m so grateful to Julia and to the other artists I met for really pushing me on that, for helping me understand that with new tastes comes a new self, and that taste again should be a journey. It should be an adventure and part of developing our eye and being able to engage more deeply with art and really anything means exposing ourselves to different things. Things we don’t know, things we think we might not like, things that are just unfamiliar and weird to us. And I think that’s exciting and can be destabilizing. But ultimately, I think very rewarding.
Natalie MacLean (00:35:56) – Absolutely. And the whole thing about getting it right or wrong when it comes to blind tasting some people, the mark of a good taster is did they guess the label correctly? And to me, that’s beside the point for most tasters. Maybe in a master of wine or Master Sommelier exam, getting it right is extra points, but I don’t think so much in life getting it right, as in or as opposed to getting it to be more expansive or just.
Bianca Bosker (00:36:24) – Getting more of it.
Natalie MacLean (00:36:26) – More of it. Yeah. Especially the good wine. Well, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed our chat with Bianca. Here are my takeaways. Number one, why are people with obsessive natures often drawn to both wine and art? Bianca observed an all consuming passion and intensity in both worlds, as she says, I’d never met a group of people willing to sacrifice so much for something of so little obvious practical value. Perhaps part of it is that these worlds are where people are not necessarily in it for the money. There has to be something else that’s pulling you through it. I also think, she continues, that these are worlds where you can go deep, like there’s a kind of endless amount of information you can learn. And she thinks that these are worlds that are not purely bloodless intellectual pursuits. They are both, in their own way, hedonistic. They really do involve all of us, our minds and our bodies, I love that. Number two. How does strategic snobbery create deliberate barriers to entry in the worlds of art and wine? Bianca explains that it exists to keep out the schmooze.
Natalie MacLean (00:37:44) – She began to understand that language is one of those constructions that exists to distinguish you as someone who does or does not get it. She thinks a lot of tasting notes have spiraled out into the universe. I have to agree. The origins, though, of tasting notes. It was an effort to develop a shared vocabulary, and there is something admirable in the spirit of that. But she also thinks that art speak exists not for clear communication. And number three, what does it mean to stay in the work or to stay with the wine? Bianca advises us to slow down, absorb it, both the art and the wine. It’s also what I teach my online wine and food pairing students. As I say, the difference between tasting and drinking is spitting and thinking. Stay with it. Think about what you’re experiencing and what you’re tasting. And while it is subjective, I agree with Bianca that you can apply some analysis to better understand and appreciate both wine and art. In the show notes, you’ll find the full transcript of my conversation with Bianca, links to her website and books the video versions of these conversations on Facebook and YouTube live, and where you can order my book online now.
Natalie MacLean (00:38:59) – No matter where you live. You can also find a link to take a free online food and wine pairing class with me, called the five Wine and Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner and How to Fix Them Forever at Natalie MacLean. Com forward slash class that’s all in the show notes at Natalie MacLean dot com forward slash 285. Email me if you have a SIP tip question, or would like to win one of three copies of Bianca’s terrific new book, Get the Picture? I also still have two copies of last week’s guest, Barbara Goodman. Her book, Wine Bites on pairing wine and food with recipes to give away. And of course, I’d love to hear from you if you’ve read my book or are in the process of reading it at Natalie at Natalie MacLean. Com. If you missed episode seven, go back and take a listen. I chat with Bianca about her first book, Cork Dork An Insider look at the wine world. I’ll share a short clip with you now to whet your appetite.
Bianca Bosker (00:39:59) – One of the things that was really revelation is the fact that many of these high end restaurants are really judging you even more than you’re judging them. They’re googling you before you come in. They’re keeping extensive logs on what you order. Are your pet peeves, personal preferences, your relationship to the restaurant and dining history. If you spend a lot of money, you could be a wine, which is short for person extraordinaire. You’re a temper tantrum. You might be an orc, which is short for handle with care or so sense of entitlement. On the surface, that can seem perhaps mercenary. But first of all, they are businesses. I mean, liquid keeps restaurants liquid.
Natalie MacLean (00:40:42) – Absolutely. And I’ve heard it said that the sommelier doesn’t sell the bottle to the customer. The sommelier sells the customer to the customer. Not in a manipulative way, but I see you and I think this is you with the wine. And of course, the old adage is customers will eat you poor and drink you rich. You won’t want to miss next week when we continue our chat with Bianca.
Natalie MacLean (00:41:08) – If you liked this episode or learned even one thing from it, please email or tell one friend about the podcast this week, especially someone you know who’d be interested in learning more about the parallels and passions between the worlds of wine and art. It’s easy to find my podcast. Just tell them to search for Natalie MacLean wine on their favorite podcast app, or they can listen to the show on my website. Thank you for taking the time to join me here. I hope something great is in your glass this week. Perhaps a wine that you feel is.
Natalie MacLean (00:41:41) – A work of art.
Natalie MacLean (00:41:49) – You don’t want to miss one juicy episode of this podcast, especially the secret full bodied bonus episodes that I don’t announce on social media. So subscribe for free now at Natalie MacLean. Com forward slash subscribe. Meet me here next week. Cheers.
