What Went Down in Dallas From the parties to the

April 15, 2015
What Went Down in Dallas
From the parties to the afterparties.
By Fan Zhong
Carson Chan, Isabella Bortolozzi and Tim Goossens at the Aurora Cocktail
Outside the VIP opening of the Dallas Art Fair last Thursday night, there stood a regiment of
valets, on high alert, three deep to the sidewalk, rushing forward to catch the doors swinging
open from Maseratis and Bentleys, as the nipped and tucked and Spanxed spilled out, all frozen
blondeness and blockbuster sparkle, into a scene lubricated by champagne and the giddy chatter
of people goosed by the belief that this is quite surely it.
In its seventh year, Dallas has swelled into a destination fair. And even in Texas, that doesn’t
mean just bigger. It is an excess of all things: shinier names, deeper pockets, longer nights,
deadlier hangovers. The week kicked off with a blockbuster at the Dallas Contemporary, where,
alongside shows by David Salle and Anila Quayyum Agha, Nate Lowman installed a massive
map of America, each state its own painting, viewable from metal bleachers that warmed the
country heart in anyone who has spent quality time with Friday Night Lights. The unofficial
afterparty, at a haunt of wide disrepute named Double Wide, was appropriately honky-tonk. The
artist and his incorrigible gang of assistants, along with the likes of Aaron Young and Leo
Fitzpatrick, scandalized the locals with feats of endurance and exhibitionism.
But for a town that still runs dry on Sundays, Dallas is not quite the basic bastion of
conservatism that one is led to think. Its collectors may not be keen on certain provocations—
agog at the serious business going on at the fair, one artist, known for his homoerotic streak,
joked, “I should make easier art”—but a less obvious sensibility is afoot. It encouraged the New
York dealer Nathalie Karg to hang a number of paintings by Kristine Moran in her booth—they
read as lovely abstractions at first glance, downright lewd female nudes at second. Of course,
there is still an awful lot of painting at the fair, from the glittery job by Devin Troy Strother at
the very entrance to the blocky work of Mernet Larsen, who was being shown by both Johannes
Vogt, of New York, and Various Small Fires, of Los Angeles. In her booth, VSF’s Esther Kim
Varet stood stunned, gaping at a woman walking away who’d been snapping a picture of the
dealer. “That was Maria Cornejo,” said Varet, in her Cornejo dress.
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The dresses were fitted quite a bit closer at the MTV RE:DEFINE benefit auction, at the GossMichael Foundation. Being honored was Michael Craig-Martin, the British artist who acts as a
godfather figure to the YBA generation. (Appropriately, a big old Damien Hirst painting was on
the block.) At his table, the artist’s daughter, Jessica Craig-Martin, who is known for her
photographs of excessive wealth, remarked drily, “Dallas is so perfect for me.” Then she got up
to take pictures of the ladies who lunch and sit on museum boards.
The Dallas Museum of Art’s Art Ball was the next night, a black-tie behemoth in a town that
really likes to gala. But much of the art world that flocked here skipped the dinner to take down
some BBQ at Lee Harvey, a parking lot with picnic tables fenced in by chain-link a block away
from And Now, an upstart gallery concealed in an unassuming ranch house that was hosting an
opening for Dan Colen. The artist’s Gagosian handler, Sam Orlovsky, stood on the rickety porch,
can of Modelo in hand. But for his suit, it would’ve been so very Texas.
Much of the week followed this trajectory, from gala to gutter. Doors were opened at the tony
homes of the city’s megacollectors, and there was a visit to the Meyerson Symphony Center to
witness a collaboration between the French conceptual artist Claude Rutault and the Dallas
Symphony (a promo concert for next month’s Soluna Festival), but there were also less
sanctioned outings for some much-needed local color, like queso with Arden Wohl and Erin
Wasson at a Tex-Mex dive (“Velveeta is good news!” said one artist present), and the expedition
one dealer led to XTC, a truly Texas-sized strip club. By the time the Eye Ball, held under Tony
Tasset’s enormous eyeball sculpture in front of the Joule Hotel, rolled around, everyone seemed
to be partied out. But just when this art world crowd, perhaps jaded by the increasing Coachellaizing of the international art fair circuit, needed someone to remind them of how they all ended
up here in the first place, along came Phil, an employee of the Cowboys’ football stadium who
could easily be mistaken for a linebacker. Eight years ago, he knew nothing about art, until he
was assigned to be the artist liaison for the stadium’s truly impressive collection, with its
monumental commissions from major artists like Olafur Eliasson. (The world’s biggest domed
stadium, with the world’s biggest TV screen, probably will also have some of the world’s biggest
art.) Now, Phil’s friends make fun of him for being an art geek. “What kind of a job is that?”
they asked him. Phil replied, “The kind of job where you be happy every day.”
Michael Craig-Martin at the Goss-Michael Foundation
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Sadie Laska and Lizzi Bougatsos at the Goss Michael Foundation
Landon Metz at the Goss-Michael Foundation
Nick Stewart and Erin Wasson at the Happy Ending Pop-Up
Justine Ludwig at the Aurora Cocktail
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Nick Van Woert
Dan Colen and Sam Orlofsky at AND NOW
Noot Seear at the Happy Ending Pop-Up
Damien Hirst
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John Riepenhoff and Tyson Reeder at AND NOW
Soluna Meyerson Symphony Center
Adam Winner and Josee Bienvenu
David Salle
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Olivier Babin at the Happy Ending Pop-Up
Mike Bouchet, Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe, and Greg Bogin
Photo by Paige Silveria
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