Doug Harvey Mines the AARP

So Bergamot was bopping – Edward Colver at Copro Nason, Becca at Patricia Correia and the Doug Harvey Biennial at Track 16.

Becca’s show practically sold out, Ed’s was packed and the Some Paintings thing at Track 16 was mobbed.

My first complaint about Doug Harvey’s Some Paintings show was that it was the kind of show Doug Harvey would have shit all over in print had anyone else curated the exact same fucking show.

Many of the artists in the show told me off the record that the sum total of Doug’s curating was to say “Give me a big painting. Real big.” – so you understand that the show is more about Doug Harvey overhanging pictures as a reflexive defense mechanism against being criticized. Paintings are placed on walls they will just fit on, there, the end.

Like a drunk frat boy looking at the hot sorority girl and mumbling “Tits. Big Tits,” the fact that Ninety Five percent of these paintings are terrible doesn’t matter – they’re all just so big, that is all that matters. The sorority girl’s personality and possible STDs don’t matter, it is just the club she is in and the size of those headlights. Dolly Parton, Ron Jeremy, John Wayne, Empire State Building, Grand Canyon, America is #1, just ask the Canadian curator claiming to speak for all of Los Angeles – or at least OLD Los Angeles. The average age of the artists in the show was a whopping 53 years old. Jeeze, get out and meet some new people, folks. Maybe this show was targeted to the LA Weekly’s aging demographic (The Weekly‘s ads are basically face-lifts for the boomer ladies, stripclubs for the boomer gents), that might explain the tilt toward old artists – an art show of your peers…

But, hey, it was rockin’ and we had a good time, there was food and many friends, even David Hinnebusch was there so you know it was a scene.

L: Becca at Patricia Correia Gallery – R: Greg Escalante and Edward Colver at Copro Nason Gallery