I couldn’t expend too much time on Angela’s second career start. Thankfully, she had the resourceful Michael Loomis for that considerable problem. My more pressing concern was getting Hogan’s take on Paul Morse. According to a Lower Manhattan Arts Festival brochure, Morse was doing documentary footage for Sylvester Williams, the hedge-fund manager behind the event. Williams—who collected art with his eyes closed, by relying on hearsay and his own patented price-appreciation algorithms—had always wanted to be part of the art scene, so he simply bought his way in, creating the annual burst of pseudo-excitement that was the LMAF: artworks paraded along Broome Street, dancers twining in a former taxi garage near Tenth Avenue and 24th, that sort of nonsense.
Since Williams got his celebrity status by climbing on the backs of hard-working dealers like me, I opted out, saving my gallery’s fall debut for the following week. So now I was conveniently free to wander. Paul, as the festival’s official videographer, might be anywhere during the openings, but he was sure to turn up that night for the launch party at Pete Lemon’s Treasure Chest. I arranged to meet Hogan on Broome, at Wilde Initiatives, telling him he’d have to work late afterwards.
The festival was split that year, with half the activities taking place in Chelsea and half in SoHo. It didn’t matter where you went first; both neighborhoods were thronged with art world denizens, glad to be back in town, and with young wannabes wearing the wrong shade of black. The outsiders had probably read the breathless write-ups in New York magazine, Flâneur, and Time Out.
It was impossible to see much art, of course. Everywhere I went, the crowds pressed thick with people talking about their summer travels and discussing dinner plans and afterparty leads. I met my compatriots by the score, kissing cheeks and gripping elbows as I wound steadily through the melee.
I toured Chelsea first, hitting maybe a dozen galleries in the first hour, then cabbed back to SoHo to cruise through the Drawing Center, Jack Tilton, David Zwirner, Caren Golden, Spencer Brownstone, Friedrich Petzel and Artists Space before pushing my way into the horde at Wilde Initiatives.
I was still trying to figure out the dealer’s new angle. Having made his mark advising big-money art collectors for HSBC, Frank Wilde had recently developed an enthusiasm for street art and young punksters. These days, his openings were jammed not with A-list spenders but with skateboarders, tattoo freaks, a few old duffer artists, and a lot of pierced and flannel-clad young freeloaders from across the East River. Maybe Frank was having a midlife crisis; otherwise, who cares about these losers?
Hogan was so late that I ran out of adults to talk to and actually had to look at the pictures for a while. They were big, slick Lisa Greystone cartoon paintings, guaranteed (despite the boho-carnival atmosphere) to start the gallery’s season off with a healthy cash flow.
Hogan, it turned out, had gotten caught in the crush at the bar table near the door. “Bad wine in plastic cups,” he said once he squeezed his way to the center of the main gallery. “You people really know how to live.”
Wilde Initiatives was clearly was not the former USMC sergeant’s kind of scene. We were jostled left and right, and the noise made it necessary to talk just below a shout.
“Things will improve,” I said. “Pete Lemon always throws a good party.” Prudently, I didn’t mention what kind.