Art events in Southern California tend to be fairly buttoned-down affairs, but the Fine Arts Dealers Association’s Los Angeles Art Show is one big, boisterous exception. Guests may be slaves to one curator’s sensibilities at a regular museum opening, but the 12th annual art show was a fantasyland for aesthetes with ADD, with paintings, sculpture, prints, and photos ranging from the 16th century to the present exhibited by 80 U.S. and international galleries at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica. This year the event was bigger than ever, with organizers adding a 32,000-square-foot pavilion to the former airplane hangar’s cavernous capacity, bringing the total area to some 80,000 square feet.
Even with all that space, the opening-night gala of the four-day show, which benefits the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Art Museum Council, was swarmed with 4,000 art lovers of all ages drinking, snacking, schmoozing, perusing, shopping, and indulging in that most hazardous of activities—shopping while drinking. Still, the mix of pursuits clearly brought out the best in people: Remarking that a brimming garbage pail next to Ocean Seafood’s raw bar was “going to be an art piece in a moment,” one guest on the chow line pitched in and opened up a fresh garbage bag for the harried waitstaff.
Venice gallery owner Kim Martindale, who has produced the art show since its birth in 1994, pulled the gala together in collaboration with Art Museum Council president Geri Sherman and event co-chairs Lana Bergstein and Connie Nagler. With so many art works vying for attention, planners had a leg up in designing the event, for the most part letting the pieces speak for themselves. Bars, buffets, and booths had simple adornments of Dutch Flower’s sumptuous arrangements of green orchids, red roses, and white antherium.
Event designer Caroline Baylon did, however, create a suitably festive entrance space, with witty references to the business at hand. Empty frames made of twigs and greens with green and white orchids shooting out from the center lined one wall.
Guests arrived to the strains of classical music from Anna Stafford and her string quartet. A large bronze horse by Barbara Beretich, titled “Big George,” stood sentry just inside, looking back toward the art fair beyond. Serious partiers moved on to an adjacent tent where the Chuck Manning Quartet played jazz while the crowd kept bartenders hopping and sampled offerings from the 12 restaurants brought in by sponsor Venice magazine.
Martindale realized he had a hit on his hands as early as 7 PM, when he spotted the long line that had formed outside the entrance as the already-busy patrons’ preview was ending and the main event was about to begin. “People were having a wonderful time and enjoying the art and each other’s company,” he said later. “That’s what I do this for.”
—Irene Lacher
Posted 01.30.07
Photos: Lee Salem/Lee Salem Photography
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