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Get the Picture, by Bianca Bosker

Bianca Bosker looked at art in her New York neighborhood and wondered what others saw.

Trying to figure out what paintings and sculptures made it into galleries and museums, she spent nearly two years working in the New York art world, trying to learn what and who makes art important right now. Because she was a journalist, getting even a menial job in this world was difficult; she was blocked by gallery owners who saw her as a potential enemy capable of distorting their work to the world. It’s an insular, paranoid world where reputations are fragile yet essential.

In Get the Picture, Bosker shares what she learned as a gallery art assistant, an artist’s apprentice and as a guard at the Guggenheim Museum. The subtitle demonstrates the book’s breadth: A Mind-Bending Journey Among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See.

Bosker developed close relationships with some of the top players in the art game, doing menial work, such as stretching canvasses and painting walls, to prove her commitment in an exhausting journey of multiple 12-hour days ending in late-night art openings and parties. Through this immersion, she learned that contemporary art often is judged by context rather than content, its meaning coming from its story. Not only who made it, but why and where, and who owns it. Art for grandma’s condo has less value than that purchased by influential collectors—even if it looks the same to us.

In fact, galleries representing “important” art are often hidden away from the annoying public. They don’t want us to bother them. The wrong buyer can spoil the story and reduce the work’s value. And it can be ruinous for an artist when her work sells at auction for many times its original selling price. While that might seem a good thing, none of that money goes to the artist, and the result of the inflation can be a deflation of the artist’s reputation. It looks like collectors see no future in holding onto the art and are dumping it for whatever they can get—which can be 100s of times the original price. Plus, being too popular cheapens the importance of the piece.

It’s a confusing world in which work that is “too pretty” is denied admittance because it is seen as simplistic and lacking in meaning, although meaning shifts so much it’s hard to keep up. The idea of an intuitive relationship with art is often seen as naïve. The art needs to earn its standing not just by being a cut above, but also by being less accessible than other works.

At the Guggenheim Museum, Bosker spent hours doing nothing but staring at art. And she learned her way of finding meaning—through immersion, waiting for the details, the meaning, the beauty to inevitably emerge. The way most of us go to art exhibits, she learned, is wrong. We dutifully look at each painting, read its description, then go on to the next. Pros, by comparison, enter the room, find the piece that captures their eye immediately, go to it, and do a deep dive. Not just for a few minutes, but for 10, 20 or more. Forget the description and let the art speak for itself. Some art instructors, in fact, require students to look at the same piece over and over throughout a semester, sometimes every class session, spending hours on one work. Each time they look, they see something different.

But there’s another reason to avoid reading the descriptions of art in galleries and museums—they are written in “International Art English,” a batch of fancy words that most of us don’t understand—and aren’t supposed to. As an example, Bosker quotes a news release for a show that will “summon forces of indexicality and iconicity from the aspirations, alibis and abuses of sovereignty.” You betcha.

So, what is art? For enjoyment, it’s up to us—what engages us and gives us joy. For profit, it’s up to the collectors and investors—what ends up in museums and art warehouses and sells for six figures or more.

Bosker introduced us to several artists that might be fun to follow, especially Erin O’Keefe and Julie Curtiss. And even though Jack Barrett took up far too much space in the book and came off as a person we need not ever meet, she nevertheless recommends his gallery in Tribeca, a block from the DIMIN gallery, whose owner, Rob Dimin and former partner Elizabeth Denny are committed to helping new artists. As for Amanda Allfire and her face-sitting art—the less said the better.

— Pat Prijatel

The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker

The Golem and the Jinni is a debut novel by Helene Wecker. The novel is a mixture of historical fiction and fantasy. The two title characters are magical creatures who unexpectedly find themselves living as immigrants in New York City around 1899. Chava is a golem created from clay by a Jewish mistic kabbalist and Ahmad is a jinni, a creature of fire, who has been trapped in a copper flask for centuries by a wizard.

The story opens in the Polish town of Konin. A local man, Otto Rotfeld, is planning to immigrate to the United States and desires to take a wife with him. Rotfeld seeks out a Jewish mistic kabbalist, Yehudah Schaalman, to make him a wife out of clay. Rotfeld asks for a submissive wife, but also request that she be curious as well. Although Schaalman foresees disaster for Rotfeld, he does as Rotfeld requests and makes him a golem for a wife.

On the voyage to the United States, Rotfeld disobeys Schaalman’s instructions and wakes the golem while still at sea. The golem wakes with no knowledge of the world but is able to sense her master’s desires and seeks to carry them out. Soon thereafter, Rotfeld becomes seriously ill and passes away. The newly awakened golem is left masterless and must use her ability to read other’s desires to hide her true nature from the other passengers while the voyage continues.

Upon arrival in New York, the golem escapes the vessel, bypasses immigration, and makes her way to the Jewish quarter. There, the golem is discovered by Rabbi Avram Meyer, who takes the golem in and names her Chava. The rabbi considers destroying Chava, as he knows how dangerous a golem can be, but decides to help Chava lead as close to normal an existence as is possible.

Meanwhile, a Christian Syrian tinsmith, Boutrous Arbeely, takes on the task of reviving an ancient copper flask. During repairs, Arbeely accidentally frees a jinni from the flask. Like the golem, the jinni is soon trying to fit into society and pass as a human, taking the name Ahmad and working at the tin-smithery with Arbeely.

Much of the story focuses on Chava’s and Ahmad’s struggles with passing as human. Both spend the hours of the nighttime awake and alone. Eventually their paths cross and they recognize each other as magical creatures. They soon forge a fraught friendship and explore the city together at night. They have opposing views on the communities that they live with and what each should be seeking in life. Chava wants to be as human as possible and seeks to fill the needs of those around her while Ahmad resents being trapped in human form and seeks a way to escape his imprisonment. The story climaxes with the arrival of an antagonist with ties to both Chava and Ahmad.

Through the novel, Wecker explores aspects of her relationship with her husband. Wecker is of Jewish heritage and her husband is of Arab heritage, which mirrors the origins of the golem Chava and the jinni Ahmad. Wecker has said that elements of the story were inspired by “similarities between our families, the way that certain themes echo between them.”

Further, the story deals with themes on class divide, the immigrant experience, and feminism. Through the fantasy lens of the golem Chava and the jinni Ahmad we experience the difficulties in assimilation to a new culture and what it means to hide one’s true nature.

— Jim Lynch

Ordinary Grace, by William Kent Krueger

William Kent Krueger’s novel Ordinary Grace won the Edgar Award for Best Novel, the Anthony Award, and The Barry Award for 2013. Krueger has also written a series of mystery stories set in Minnesota based on sheriff/detective Cork O’Connor.

Ordinary Grace is a coming of age-story set in 1961 New Bremen, Minnesota. The story is narrated by Frank Drum as an adult forty years later. He recounts the events and challenges of that summer when everything he, as a thirteen year old, thought he knew of the world he was living in, was falling apart. We feel, see, hear and think as the thirteen year old in this story. It feels as if the town and characters were very real in their human experiences and emotions. The tone of this story is written with a quiet melancholy air.

Based in the small town of New Bremen, Minnesota, 13 year-old Frank, his brother Jake, and sister Ariel live with their parents Nathan, a Methodist minister and his wife Ruth. The story begins with the death of Bobby Cole, a child with golden hair and thick glasses killed on the railroad tracks. In that summer, the town saw five deaths, one of them was a member of the Drum family. Frank’s innocent summer transforms into a dark journey into adulthood.

The family members and the community deal with the deaths in many ways: goodness, joy, kindness, cruelty, anger and grace. The book raises questions of racism, war, mental illness, forgiveness, despair, faith and redemption. Often in the face of despair, Nathan spoke quiet humble words of faith to the community helping us, as the reader, to begin to understand the awful grace of God.

The action, characters, picturesque writing and the setting all enhance the story. The writing allows you to feel the depth of despair, the joy of life and ordinary grace of God.

One question raised in the novel is, “Why does God let bad things happen to good people?” Ordinary Grace is a journey of that question.

But it is Jake who offers us the most profound understanding of ordinary grace. “And that was it. A grace so ordinary that there was no reason at all to remember it. Yet I have never across the forty years since it was spoken forgotten a single word.” At the end of the novel, we glimpse in understanding the quote of what is ordinary grace.

— Deb Krueger