This year Art Los Angeles Contemporary (ALAC) was in the Barker Hanger at the Santa Monica Airport, a favored venue for the fair. ALAC is a relatively small-scale and digestible fair which has a very diverse group of galleries from ACE, Los Angeles to Mother's Tank Farm, Dublin. The fair had an independent spirit which we view as one of ALAC's positive attributes.
1301PE's booth at ALAC 2011
Tracy William's booth exhibited three artists, Matt Mullican, Peter Stickbury, and Anna Craycroft, all of whom use portraiture for different means. Many LA artists' space also held booths at the fair. WOR focused on Marnie Weber and Jennifer Bolande. Night Gallery made a day appearance at the Eight Veil booth. The late night Night Gallery experience could not be replicated but the attempt was notable.
1301PE was happy to see Forage and Intelligencia respectively providing the food and coffee. Forage's ginger cookies and marshmallow-topped brownies paired perfectly with Intelligencia's flat white cappuccinos. It would have been nice if the sandwich bread could have been toasted. Nonetheless, Forage is a vast improvement over Lemonade's catering at last year's ALAC.
Opening night at ALAC
We were told that over 3,000 people came to ALAC's opening. Everyone was in good spirits despite the fact that the bar ran out of vodka mixers and had to start serving free Intelligencia coffee in compensation. 1301PE did well at the fair, as did many other galleries. We noticed, however, that some out-of-town galleries had a harder time solidifying sales. This has been the fundamental and long standing problem for galleries who come to Los Angeles. From ART LA in the late 80's to the Chateau Marmont to Art LA with Dan Hug in 2007 getting lots of international galleries into the Santa Monica Civic - galleries come and galleries go, mostly because they find no new collectors.
It seems like ALAC is ripe to attract galleries and collectors from Mexico, Vancouver, Asia as well as Europe.
