![“Valerie, be sure to dress nicely and memorize the current inventory before the Stella opening; we’ll have you greeting collectors at the museum.” Pushing my own objectification to ts logical limits at the Whitney on behalf of my boss, 2015.](https://theconversationpod.com/wp-content/uploads/cache/2024/02/Valerie-be-sure-to-dress-nicely-and-memorize-the-current-inventory-before-the-Stella-opening-well-have-you-greeting-collectors-at-the-museum_-Pushing-my-own-objectification-to/4091982292.jpg)
![Paintings by Basquiat hanging on the walls of Annina Nosei’s apartment, taken covertly when she wasn’t looking](https://theconversationpod.com/wp-content/uploads/cache/2024/02/Paintings-by-Basquiat-hanging-on-the-walls-of-Annina-Noseis-apartment-taken-covertly-when-she-wasnt-looking-scaled/4202963667.jpg)
This episode features the 1st half of the full episode. To get the full version, please visit: Patreon.com/theconversationpod The Conversation Art Podcast | creating a podcast that goes behind the scenes of the art worlds | Patreon
Recovering art worker and author of the novel Thieves, Valerie Werder talks about:
Her entrance into the art world via her demanding position at a fancy gallery in her attempt, as a newbie, to get access and proximity to the art world; her ability to conform and comply under pressure (in the gallery environment), and the what the flip side of that looks like; what the coercion, that came thru various forms of care and the engendering of a ‘family’ dynamic at the gallery, looked like and how it played out, including through fancy paid meals and credit for fancy clothes so she could look and act the part; how working at a gallery gave her a completely different relationship to language, including the quick turnaround she had to produce, becoming a ‘language producing machine’ in the process; the craft of writing a gallery press release, and how she ultimately became, upon writing her novel, the ‘commodity’ herself that she in turn needed to sell.