Daniel Foster and Peter Frank at the Gallery C booth at the Los Angeles Art Show, 1-23-08
Art Fairs are a culture of their own, almost an art world within an art world. The Los Angeles Art Show’s grand opening Wednesday night obviously suffered from a drenching downpour. Attendance for the opening shindig was considerably smaller than last year’s opening night and the sales were paltry. People clamored about the feedbag, and it was a good one of free restaurant grub – fresh shucked oysters, for example, were a big highlight.
Celebrity sightings: William Shatner and his wife were accompanied by two queenie designer types who talked him out of everything he liked. Owen Wilson gawked at stuff like one would imagine a stoner/actor type to go “Wow, trippy…”.
A number of galleries were furious when a pleasant, if lackluster evening, was broken into with screaming audio of some maniac asking everyone to shush – it turns out that a small, amateurish “awards ceremony” by Art and Living magazine was piped in over the sound system at ridiculously loud levels. Some knucklehead is yammering on and on about museum awards he is giving out – of course, Michael Govan and Connie Butler (to name some names he “awarded” in name-dropping pride) none of them are even there to pickup the awards, but Mister Flapjaw keeps it up. So I am trying to discuss a real estate deal with a Culver City bigwig and a gallery director next to me is trying to sell a painting – the Jerkoff who cannot get anyone to attend his award ceremony and pick up their awards just talks nonstop and my contact bolts at the same time the collector strays too far amidst the needless clamor. Wow, whoever gave this amateur a microphone to totally ruin what was already a shaky night out… man oh man, get it together, if you are small potatoes, don’t jump up and amplify your screaming about this pathetic fact.
THE 6 PM SCRAMBLE TO FIX LEAKY ART FAIR TENT ROOFS IS UNDERWAY: