There are few more self-congratulatory terms in the world of journalism than the “deep dive”, but Bianca Bosker has earned the right to get those two words tattooed on any body part of her choosing. She doesn’t sit with and sift through her material so much as plunge headlong into it, gatecrashing cloistered ecosystems that want nothing to do with her, and emerging as a foremost expert. In her 2017 debut Cork Dork, Bosker was brave enough to infiltrate the realm of wine snobs and attempt to pass the notoriously difficult sommelier test (spoiler alert: she succeeded). The latest object of the New Yorker’s fascination – and frustration – is the realm of contemporary art, a micro-society populated by uber-cool gallerists, uber-rich collectors, and the countless starving artists and sad-sack wannabes firing up their Seesaw apps and trying to cram 15 gallery openings into one Thursday night.
“It took over my life,” is how she puts the process of reporting Get the Picture, her plucky and hilarious account of years working as a gallery girl, studio assistant, and guard at the Guggenheim Museum. “I don’t think that at the outset I had any idea the extent to which it would take over my life, or the length of time it would take over my life.” Part of the problem was getting access. “I felt like an FBI agent showing up for a job interview with the mob,” she says of her efforts to win over art world sources. The message she kept hearing was: back off. There were even threats. “They didn’t come right out and threaten my safety or anything,” Bosker says. “But my reputation, wellbeing, and livelihood as a journalist – that was another story.” When some people got wind of her project, they indicated that if she went through with it, they’d better like every word they read.
