Art Show Me Your Junk

Thursday, July 14, saw the L.A. Vs. Montreal Group Art Show opening at Jeff Electric Gallery in Silver Lake. The front room of the gallery space was divided in half. To the East was offerings from the L.A. contingent, more violent, but still quaint works. To the West, the Montreal kids, who weren't actually present, had their wares, more cute, slightly more aesthetically developed works of collages, sketches and prints. The Montreal artists are a part of the Young Peoples Foundation. Pointing to the various pieces, a scetchy young man from North Carolina talked of each of the Canadian artists with fondness, spoke of the week they spent crashing at his pad a while back, spoke of the "magic." I suspect the magic was the ability of the "artists" to swindle a crash pad in L.A. for a week, but you never know. Canadians might well be less discriminate of wary, annoying characters than I am.

But the real art was out back where the DJs were spinning and free Redstripe, sangria, and screwdrivers were dispensed to a flawless hipster crowd. The vectors created by the lines in the angular haircuts constructed a fractal web of lines so complex and stunning, the scene itself became a kind of installation piece. Standout was the skinny latin boy in short-tight white jeans, white sleeveless shirt, little black fanny pack to the side, and a black leather fedora pointing to the night sky perched on a mound of wild curly black hair (I faltered as I watched him enter the outdoor area and saunter up to his equally impressive fashion-boy friends and embrace them with long, grasping, wistful hugs).
And all the way in back, if there was any question as to who exactly the winner was in this L.A. Vs. Montreal battle of the indie art, Argee Geronca's "I Am My Brother's Keeper," delivered the mighty victory blow for Angelinos. The large painting of a Centaur holding a machine gun with the head cut out for photo ops and fun times. It was perfect. Anyone who could climb the stepladder at the back of the painting could be a strong, mythic, guerrilla protector. I did. So too did Geronca pictured below. Art battle won, easy.