Photo by Scott Rudd
“Do you have an opening Friday night,” a comely 20-something asked me at MoMA’s kickoff party for the 2009 Armory show. Flattered, I was about to reply that I had plans that could most certainly be moved when I thought better of it. “Oh, I don’t work at a gallery,” I responded. We both looked at our feet and shuffled on. ---
In the packed museum, gallerinas, scruffy Williamsburg lumberjack types, surprised looking art collectors and Lucy Liu mingled, drinking Grolsch and taking in the Martin Kippenberger show on the second floor.
Standing beneath Andy Warhol’s Flowers, painter Melodie Provenzano said, “It’s worth the $100 to come here. It’s business but it still feels indie.” Stopping to snap a photo with her camera, the petite brunette added, “Warhol would be here if he was alive.”
Across the room, a strapping Brooklynite in a low-cut T-shirt and unbuttoned Bengal-striped number wasn’t so sure. “It’s a young collectors scene,” he said, gesturing to the young suits milling about the room. And while there were certainly more AARP members and junior executive types than at your average party at Deitch Projects, it turns out you can’t judge a young collector by his blazer.
Indeed, as Brooklyn’s own Gang Gang Dance took the stage—apparently recovered from a fire in Amsterdam that claimed its equipment—everyone crowded around and, suit jacket or plaid button-down, took in the spectacle of the band droning with the museum’s sculpture garden right behind. One couple was inspired to suck face in the middle of the dance floor. Both were wearing jeans.
“The intersecting dimensions of the party are fabulous,” said Stacey Engman, Chief Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Arts Club, herself no stranger to hosting ragers in normally sober places. “To pull it off you’ve got to have originality and optimism—and here they’ve got it.”
