2nd Saturday Letdown
Ξ April 13th, 2008 | → | ∇ Highland Park, The Arts |
Tonight was supposed to be an evening celebrating Northeast culture via my first Second Saturday Gallery Walk. Of course, this being LA, it’s really a gallery drive, unless you live within walking distance of one of the studios. The night began inauspiciously by cruising past the apparently closed Rock Rose Gallery (which according to the NELAart website was supposed to be open). We instead backtracked towards Future Studios, the home of Chicken Boy. The featured exhibit seemed to be a high school art class project on using found objects to create art. It was nice to see the kids around but it doesn’t take long to cycle through a gallery whose highlight is six empty V8 cans on a “Recycle” sign. Next on the itinerary was the venerable Judson Studios. Their exhibit was by far the best of the evening, but surprisingly, was the least crowded. We had the room mostly to ourselves to admire the works, which unfortunately were far out of our price range. (I have champagne taste with a beer budget as my mother always says.) Hopefully, my beer budget would be better suited to our next stop at Avenue 50 Studio. After searching for parking for a minute, we walked two blocks to the studio which was packed with local literati, hangers on, and those just congratulating themselves for being progressive enough to celebrate the arts for an evening. (As proof of self awareness I’m sure we fit into one of these categories but I can’t pick one.) The cynical half of my brain thinks the crowd must have had as much to do with the wine and food in back as the art. In any event, being jostled by the token flamboyant artist, guy with dreadlocks, hipster girls in vintage dresses, and baby boomer proving he’s still “down” with his Volcom shirt and faded jeans nearly made me blow a gasket. No one offered an “excuse me” when battering me with their over-sized bag, and I witnessed someone unwittingly knocking over a display because they were too focused on drinking Merlot from their plastic glasses. Sadly, some of the pieces in the back room were very nice and I’m guessing they were more affordable than at the Judson Studios, I’ll have to return on a less crowded night when I’m not so grumpy.
By 9:30 I was ready to vomit from navigating this scene of dilettante hipsters and needed a sure thing. My vote was for the York (and yes, I would probably be trading a sea of hipsters for an entire ocean but at least I’d have a cold beer in hand and could enjoy a modicum of space), but my lady balked at the idea as I think she’s becoming jealous of Ryan, Mary, and the rest of the York staff. Instead, we decided a night of frustrated attempts at high culture could only be solved by a successful foray into the low brow (whose cornerstone ironically would be “High Life”). Food4Less promised the $7 12-pack of the champagne of beers (the aforementioned High Life) and Rompope, and the Figueroa Street Marketplaceserved up the tacos and esquites. We promptly curled up on the couch, twisted open a few cold ones, and put on the Dodgers/Padres game. I’ll give the arts walk another chance, but for tonight at least, my beer budget proved the perfect end to an imperfect evening.
3 Responses to ' 2nd Saturday Letdown '
on April 14th, 2008 at 8:06 am
I feel your pain. I walked down to Kristi Engle Gallery and MorYork. The exhibit at Kristi Engle is really beautiful but the exhibit design was not so great. And MorYork is kind of awesome, I highly recommend it! And I wanted to go to Judson but it’s far! The whole driving thing really puts a damper on the WALK part of artwalk. I think if there were some sort of shuttle for the event, there might be a bigger turn out.
on April 15th, 2008 at 6:16 am
good read!!
on April 16th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Concur on the MorYork gallery…….
it’s really really interesting.
Check it out if you have not in the past…..you will not regret it. It’s a treasure.