part one

The weather was gorgeous yesterday, and I just read in the NY Times Book Review that one of Elmore Leonard's writing maxims is to never open with the weather, but I am not a crime novelist and the weather was gorgeous yesterday, all the more so because I had been told it was supposed to rain all day and that rain never materialized, never even threatened to do so.

I drank too much coffee in the first part of the day, watched Six Feet Under, sat for some photos for Paul, and then this is what the day will really be remembered for when I recall in future ones - Barry McGee. I went to his opening at Deitch Projects because I knew it was going to be a spectacle, but the spectacle I was anticipating was a large crowd of fashionistas. That was there, sure, but what outspectacled even the usual outsized crowd attending Deitch openings was the art itself. If you are Mr. Deitch and just drip money, this is what you should be spending it on, amusement park like installations that you most likely cannot sell, but which let the people seeing it for its brief erection, see something singularly spectacular.

You enter the gallery space through the cab of an overturned delivery truck. And then there are smoke machines fogging up what is a mutliple car pileup that reaches to the ceiling of the large Deitch space. Underneath this, cavelike, is a perfect recreation of a public bathroom, of what looks like the bathrooms in high school. Stalls painted a hideous color. Graffiti stained mirror and a motorized mannican spraypainting back and forth. Across the room from this, there is little booth that you enter to find a ladder which you climb down through a narrow passageway to get a small room with a bunch of his small drawings hung around painted VCRs. When I climbed out of there, I took in the whole room again and thought that this is what the apocalyse must look like.

I am so glad I attended this during the opening because it gave the entire scene this added Lost Boys quality, all those young people, lots of skateboards in tow, drinking and partying around this fogged up demolition site. It was, far and away, the best show I have seen in recent memory. Perhaps the best concieved gallery exhibiton I have ever seen. I was only familiar with McGee's sad, disemobied heads that he paints. Those were almost lost in this exhibition. You don't even really notice them or how good they are with a car wreck steaming behind you.

Outside, I met this really nice boy, Ryan, and talked to him for a bit. After the opening and after one at Artist's Space, I went with Niki to Lit where there was an open bar till ten. I got way drunk and had to leave to return a video by eleven. On the way home, we stopped at Taco Bell and almost creamed our pants because it was so fucking good. No, so fucking good. I have to go now because Niki just got here. But there will be a Part 2 for Friends eyes only to tell about some other things.

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Thanks to jinxremoving for this link to pictures of the opening. Look!