Bash Compactor: New Editions

“I’ve never been this far uptown. I have no idea where I am,” startlingly handsome (even to a straight dude) photographer [Mark Borthwick] told me as we mingled last week at the Gagosian Gallery, nearly 77 blocks north of East Houston Street. We were celebrating the launch of [Exhibition A,](http://www.exhibitiona.com) a flashy new sales website similar to Gilt Group, but with art instead of clothes.

“There’s going to be an evolving, revolving group of artists displaying their wares,” explained Half Gallery owner Bill Powers, who helped select the artists involved. “There might be 10 or there might be 1,000 prints, but they’ll all only be available for two weeks. It’s a point of entry for people who maybe haven’t collected before.”

Artists whose work will be available include palpitation-inducing Downtown types like Terrence Koh, Hanna Liden and Rene Ricard, though by the time I stumbled out, only Ricard had shown up. Instead, a slightly older, richer and more put-together-looking crowd than one normally sees at openings milled about; everyone seemed to know each other. The usual cadre of young art aficionados looking to take advantage of free booze seemingly got lost trying to navigate their way north.

The closest thing to a bright young thing I saw was Borthwick’s companion for the evening, his very cool-looking daughter who, upon doing my post-event research, turned out to be 16.

Earlier in the night, James Frey, a partner in Half Gallery, had been shuffling around, but he left before the action really began or I could haunt him with my inane questioning.

Still, I caught up with Danish artist Hanne Lauridsen, who, sporting fuzzy leopard print pants, a jacket straight out of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, a Moscow fur hat and enough bangles and rings to sound like a didgeridoo when she moved, was showing around a friend from Sweden. Had she been to Miami the previous week for the Art Basel madness? “No, I like the cold. I’m waiting for it to snow so I can go cross-country skiing in Central Park,” she said, confirming that at least one young person in the crowd knew her way around above 23rd Street.

Back with Borthwick (whose edition for Exhibition A goes on sale this month), I was learning about a nature film he is finishing. “It’s a poem,” he said, “that takes me on a long walk through nature, which eventually rapes me.”

It was then that I myself felt lost uptown and quickly scurried to the 6 train, turning back every so often to make sure that I wasn’t being followed.