LA Times
Calendar : December 21, 2006
Putting
the 'art' in party
At gatherings grand and humble, art makes for a potent mixer
across L.A.
But the art world social scene here has never exactly been what you'd
call avant garde. At least not when it comes to feting homegrown talent
and younger arts patrons outside established templates — black-tie
institutional galas and Two Buck Chuck-fueled boho get-togethers being
the perfunctory modes of celebrating modern art. And in terms of connecting
it in any organic way to the entertainment industry, fashion, celebrity,
indie rock and hipsterdom, L.A. still looks east for inspiration.
In recent weeks, however, several art-related events — in Hollywood,
Elysian Park, West Hollywood and Culver City, respectively — have
signaled an evolution in how Los Angeles will party in the name of art.
Each event derived a cerebral glamour from differing points on the pop-art
continuum, crossing time-honored social divides in the process and raising
both money for and awareness about Angeleno cultural life in the process.
In the view of York Chang, a figurative painter and multimedia installation
artist who also happens to be a commissioner of the Los Angeles Cultural
Affairs Commission, changes in the art world social milieu may reflect
a larger cultural shift.
"You're seeing more and more people tapping intersections between
art and our civic culture," he said. "It's great for the city.
And all the partying is great for art. It plays an important function.
At the heart of great art is great social energy."
The November party "Baby's All Grown Up" served as a meta-narrative
deconstruction of what an art opening is and isn't supposed to be, featuring
the work of seven emergent local artists and the intrusive presence
of surveillance cameras. Another event last month, pARTy 2006, distinguished
itself from previous arts institution membership galas with a fresh
infusion of Hollywood glamour: by commingling the glitterati (and many
of their agents) with the city's culturati. "Free Money,"
a free weekly event at the Mandrake Bar in Culver City, manages to unite
disparate Angeleno tribes — galleristas, fashion victims, starving
artists and the skinny jeans set — by throwing casually outlandish
theme parties. And earlier this month, the KCRW-sponsored fifth anniversary
party for arts collective Create:Fixate, a bimonthly multimedia event,
featured a cross-section of emerging lowbrow and fine artists, electronic
musicians and purveyors of bohemian clothing and accessories, not to
mention a troupe of dancing Santas.
"People communicate here through parties," said Bettina Korek,
an influential contemporary-art marketing consultant. "But a lot
of people are getting sick of just going out for the sake of going out.
They're looking for an enriching experience. That leads them to want
to make art a part of their lifestyles."
In a spoofing mood
At Marvimon House, a cavernous former car showroom turned chic event
space located in the shadow of Chavez Ravine, guests entering "Baby's
All Grown Up" were confronted first by a paparazzi-style photographer
snapping pictures of everyone who entered the event, then by a boom-mounted
digital video camera inside that swooped through the crowd in an effort
to record the action — but also to "challenge the conventional
definition of an art exhibition," according to curator/co-organizer
Veronica Fernandez, a freelance curator and art advisor.
"It's a celebration of art but at the same time, it's poking fun
at the entire thing," said Fernandez, who marked her 28th birthday
that night. "It's cynical."
Art world grandees, a smattering of art school students and some big-ticket
collectors — 150 people in all, most of whom paid $99 to attend
— supped on a roundelay of gourmet hors d'oeuvres created from
recipes by famous artists (post-Impressionist Paul Cézanne's
seared albacore crudo with citrus marinated jicama salad was one of
the highlights, as was the fifth course: meatloaf sandwich à
la Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell). Music came courtesy of
the alt-country band Pillbilly Nights and DJ Eddie Ruscha (whose namesake
father, Ed, is a certified pop art superstar).
Many attendees seemed visibly out of their depth so far east of the
405. But it helped that they could sip a different designer cocktail
with every course amid sculptural floral arrangements by artist Holly
Vesecky and installation art by rising stars such as Tim Doyle, Franco
Mondini-Ruiz and Chuck Moffitt.
The idea was to have everyone interact with, eat, sniff and drink in
the art rather than regard it from a detached emotional distance. "It's
a crazy environment," said Cathy Akers, whose sexy-naif nature
diorama sculpture, "Natural Selection 2," was on display.
"You're part of the performance even if people are supposed to
be looking at your work."
A guest who identified himself as Johnny Radio added: "Everyone
here is artsy and beautiful and — how can I put it? — hungry.
There's a high possibility of an orgy."
Coming together
Sponsored by the New Yorker magazine and held at Gemini G.E.L., a venerable
artist workshop and publisher of limited edition prints and sculptures,
pARTy 2006 was nominally intended as a membership drive for young supporters
of local cultural institutions: L.A. Opera's ARIA group, the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art's President's Circle Avant-Garde membership group,
the Museum of Contemporary Art's MOCA Contemporaries, the Los Angeles
Music Center's Proscenium Club and WOW, a nonprofit initiative of the
Art Production Fund.
In application, however, the party was a perfect storm of cultural bigwigs
and Creative Artists Agency suits, movie producers, socialites and demi-celebrities,
artists and those wishing to bask in their reflected limelight at a
time when nine-figure contemporary art sales (such as David Geffen's
recent $140-million "de-acquisition" of a Jackson Pollock
painting) have become the new normal.
Veteran club promoter-turned-DJ Brent Bolthouse spun Lou Reed and Creedence
Clearwater Revival records just yards from a print workshop crammed
with big-ticket works on paper by John Baldessari, Bruce Nauman and
Richard Serra. Model-actress-celebutante Devon Aoki rubbed elbows with
the likes of MOCA chief curator Paul Schimmel and Rosette Delug, a board
member for the Armand Hammer Museum. And a disparate group of boldfaced
names, including actress Jordana Brewster, LAXART director-curator Lauri
Firstenberg, celebrity interviewer Steven "Cojo" Cojocaru
and model-turned-gallery owner Honor Fraser, could be spotted among
the 500-strong throng of Angeleno jeunesse d'orée.
The seemingly effortless — yet far-reaching — social networking
efforts of Bettina Korek, who organized the event, weren't lost on guest
Erin Wright, a board liaison for LACMA.
"What she's done that's so interesting is to get together Hollywood
with people who read and people who think," Wright said. "It's
the arts and music in town coming together — a great amalgamation
of interests."
Andrew Berardini, who contributes to Artforum's Scene & Herd column
(artforum.com), assessed the scene more bluntly. "This event is
the art world trying to crash into the entertainment world — or
vice versa," he said. Operatic tenor David Lomeli began to serenade
the crowd with a rendition of "No Puede Ser."
"Look around you," Berardini said, gesturing at the well-dressed
crowd throwing back complimentary Don Julio Tequila margaritas and Reyka
Vodka pomegranate martinis. "It's working!" Indeed, that night
nearly three dozen new members signed on to the various patrons groups,
in some cases at $1,000 a pop.
See art and be seen
Even further down the economic food chain, the crashing of worlds can
be heard. The arts collective Create:Fixate may have begun life as a
downtown loft venue showcasing emerging artists. But five years in,
the bimonthly extravaganza — which is "freaky, like in a
Burning Man kind of way," in the words of one repeat attendee —
draws a crowd intent on seeing art but also on being seen while seeing
art. Pajama parties, people on stilts, hot tubs and drag queens have
historically been part of the equation.
No exception was its "Alive in Los Angeles" event earlier
this month that commemorated Create:Fixate's wood anniversary. Sponsored
by KCRW and the Onion, the event had more than 30 visual artists participate,
including experimental sculptors, photographers, fashion designers,
video artists and painters.
And unlike most pinkie-in-the-air, Chardonnay-in-the-gut arts soirees,
this one had a family-friendly component: the so-called "Creativity
Kids Zone," where the "Hannah Montana" demographic could
finger-paint while their parents, ahem, created and fixated.
The Audio Lab involved live bands, spoken-word performers and nearly
half a dozen DJs, including John Tejada, Der Kontraktor, Slang Min and
Drifter.
On the edge of now
Along with the Mountain Bar in Chinatown, Culver City's Mandrake has
become L.A.'s ranking art bar — a drinking hole situated on the
La Cienega gallery corridor that's run by and for artists. The former
gay leather joint regularly exhibits new work and hosts art talks in
its cavernous back room.
But every Wednesday since September, the Mandrake has also been home
to "Free Money," a casual, guest-list-free event that pulls
in those on the cutting edge of now (fashion plate-actress Chloë
Sevigny, for one) with "conceptual" iPod DJ-ing and outlandish
themes — "proto rave," "John Peel night" after
the venerable English indie rock DJ, and "the Kate Moss make-out
party," intended as a woozy, sexy supermodel homage, rank among
"Free Money's" more memorable nights.
According to Ezra Woods, one of the event's three "hosts"
(part of a collective called Indole that resists being pigeonholed as
party promoters), "Free Money's" unique chemistry is indivisible
from its gallery-centric location. "The arty crowd here is definitely
a selling point," he said. "The art world is definitely fabulous.
And the gallery crowd attracts other creative people: writers, fashion
designers, dancers, some actors."
Last week was "singles night" at "Free Money." And
although no one would quite cop to being on the make — no Binaca
blasts or Drakkar Noir here — an unmistakable Echo Park hipster
contingent made its way to the Westside for the event. As did a clutch
of local cultural shot-callers: among them, MOCA's assistant director
of board affairs Ari Wiseman; Eugenie Joo, director of the gallery at
the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater; cultural commissioner York
Chang and Andrea Feldman Falcione, curator of '80s power agent Mike
Ovitz's powerhouse modern art collection.
As the night wore on, women with $2,000 purses mingled with scruffy
artists whose street-savvy fashion style tended toward a look that can
be described only as "post-grooming." People danced to the
Brit-pop of Pulp and Morrissey beneath the "no dancing" sign
in the back room, Jean-Luc Godard's "Contempt" flickered from
a projector against a wall.
"The mix of people is really interesting," said Tiffany Tuttle,
designer for the footwear line LD Tuttle. "It's cool but not too
cool for school."
Which, when it comes down to it, seems to be the way L.A. likes to put
the "art" in party.