Be Still My Art

Dear Santa Monica,

I resent you. Not because you’re not appealing and I don’t appreciate your pretty coastal views and your superior coffee shops. But mostly because you’re so far away. When someone moves West from the central part of Los Angeles (West Hollywood, Hollywood, Los Feliz, Silverlake, etc), we all pretty much say goodbye to them. People who live on the West Side are pretty much dead to everyone else. This is why I found it so hard to work up the motivation to drive all the way to Santa Monica on Sunday to enjoy the Art Los Angeles Contemporary at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica. Despite having a totally awkward name (doesn’t it seem like “Art” and “Los Angeles” should switch places?), the event was a ton of fun, filled with art that I coveted which filled me both with delight at how beautiful it was and overwhelmed me with sadness that I could not own each and every piece. Someday I want to be an art thief and just steal all the art I want and have the most glamorous house filled with art and everyone will be jealous. Except for Donny Deutsch, who already has an amazing art collection (details to follow).

This is the Barker Hangar, which at some point had airplanes in it and now just houses glamourous art events.

And onto the art, which speaks for itself:

Alexander Kroll

Alexander Kroll

Thomas Dozol

Gay Sidenote: Thomas Dozol is dating Michael Stipe (REM) and they live in a glamorous apartment in Lower Manhattan. Read the article about and see proof here:

Jon Pylypchuk

Shirana Shahbazi

Sarah Cain

Mark Flood

Thomas Jeppe

ACE Gallery

Yunhee Min

Yunhee Min

Yunhee Min

Denis Darzacq

Denis Darzacq

Matthew Stone

Matthew Stone

Matthew Stone

Lee Materazzi

Lee Materazzi

Mel Bochner

Adam Belt

Kelsey Brookes

Kelsey Brookes

Luka Finiesen

Luka Finiesen

Cathryn Boch

This is actually a beach towel, but they displayed it as a painting and I thought it was genius:

 Rirkrit Tiravanija

Alyssa Phoebus Mumtaz

The Art Los Angeles Contemporary was a beautiful event, full of amazing art and stylish men in ironic, wide-legged capri pants (don’t even ask me what that is, I’m still processing). The sky was dark and tumultuous, much like the storm of art-desire that brewed within my heart.

Someday, I want to live in a place like Donny Deutsch’s Crazy Manhattan Townhouse. I don’t even know if I like the style, but you really can get away with a lot stylistically when you have Warhols hanging on the wall:

Oh yeah, that’s just my Damien Hirst above the sofa. Glamour.

Barbara Kruger. I’ve always loved her. GIMME.

So, there we have it. If I don’t buy millions of dollars worth of art, get a giant house to put it in, and spend the rest of my life staring at it I will consider my life a complete failure.

Love,

Orlando