Last Night

Was a packed house at Mate in Georgetown, where nearly everyone and anyone with a footprint in the Greater DC area visual art scene was present for the launching festivities for artDC.

Believe it or not, I hadn't been to G'town since we closed the original Fraser Gallery, which is about a block up the street on 31st Street, NW in Canal Square. The Parish Gallery, which used to be our neighbor in the Square knocked down the wall between the two galleries and now Norman Parish's old space looks really nice with the expanded area.

Anyway, Mate was packed to the gills and there was good food and an open bar, and all the head honchos for ArtDC were there, as well as their media co-sponsors, DC Magazine.

In addition to a significant number of handsome men and goodlooking women, who came clearly because of the magazine's co-sponsorhip of the event, many of DC area [also goodlooking] gallerists such as Leigh Conner, Martin Irvine, Julia Morelli and others were present, as well as some of the folks from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, a museum director or two, including Jack Rasmussen from the Katzen, a lot of curators like Vivienne Lassman, Sarah Tanguy, Angela Jerardi and others, and even some of the folks from the mainstream media who rarely come to openings showed up, including WaPotistas Michael O'Sullivan and the fair Jessica Dawson. Also saw some of DC's rare and few ubercollectors, such as Dr. Ognibene, Podestas, etc., some of which were actually co-sponsoring the event.

Didn't see too many artists, other than painters Candace Keegan and Sondra Arkin.

We were told by Ilana Vardy, the fair's director, that so far 80 or so galleries from 12 countries have been accepted into DC's first major international commercial fine arts fair, and it is clear that the artDC organizers are trying to align every possible thing that can be aligned to ensure that the fair takes root and that it becomes not only a commercial success, but also a recurring event.

The fair will take place April 27-30, 2007 at the Washington Convention Center, Hall E. Details here.