Last night Sam and I decided to try and see both the C.A.V.E. show and the new Gallery 1988 show in the span of 45 minutes.  I’d never driven down Abbot Kinney Blvd before and it was surprisingly trendy.  How trendy?

Well, there was a white Ferrari Enzo parked on the street. Supposedly only 70 Enzos were even sold in US, and this is the first one I’ve seen that wasn’t red.

The art at the gallery was okay, but nothing to post up here. Van Saro had a few well-made pieces, but half of them were left overs from his featured month at the Hive.  However, my opinion may have been different about the rest of the art if I had been able to actually get a good look at any of it.  The gallery was so packed it was hard to move.

Next we tried the Gallery 1988 Wet Hot American Summer 10 year anniversary show.  The show was supposed to be hosted by David Wain.  However, at 9:45 I didn’t see David anywhere.  Perhaps he wasn’t wearing glasses, or grew facial hair… who knows.  I actually have to admit I never even watched WHAS, I just assumed it wasn’t good (like most of the Stella movie, which, unfortunately, I did watch).  However, since all these artists got something out of it, maybe I should check it out.

When we entered there was a guy in a gray coat with art under his arm ahead of us.  This gallery was packed too – so the stuff under his arm kept poking Sam.  I’m pretty sure after seeing him turn around and talk to some of the artists that this fellow was Michael Showalter.  This blogger makes it seem possible. So, even though Wain disappeared, I got to see a former cast member of The State anyway.

The art was pretty good (Gallery 1988 has a stable of regular artists for these themed shows that are consistently good), but I wish I knew what it meant.  I felt like Sam must have when we went to the John Hughes tribute show (Ferris Beuhler was not shown on Thailand’s version of TBS when she was young apparently).

I would post some of the art, but surprisingly, the art doesn’t seem to be up on the 1988 website.  I’m sure the art reviews will pop up on Monday – until then – this site has a very short (and not necessarily the pieces I would have picked) preview.

UPDATE: That was fast!  Gallery 1988 already has their own blog post about last night with a photo of Wain (yeah, wasn’t there when we were – pretty sure I would have recognized him).  More importantly, they have a link to the Huffington Post article on the show (also fast) – which mentions that several members of The State were in attendance – including Ken Marino.  This is important because yesterday I was sure that Ken Marino was the guy in the coat in front of us – but I didn’t read anything about him being in attendance – but Showalter was written about… so I changed “Ken Marino” in my original post to Michael Showalter.  However, if you look at one of the later photos on the Huffington article – isn’t that Ken in the window?  No?  I don’t know…

The guy in the window in the gray coat was the guy in front of us (I think)… that’s Ken, right?  Or is it an artist?  It isn’t Showalter… He sounded like Ken Marino when he talked…  He looks like he’s signing a print…which would make sense for Ken Marino (who was in the movie) to do… who knows….  I didn’t hear him talking about dipping his balls in anything….so maybe it wasn’t him.

 

 

But I’m pretty sure it was…

 

Update #2: Gallery 1988 has two new photos up their blog – one of which showing  Joe Lo Truglio, David Wain and Ken Marino.

Yes, the man in front of us – now confirmed as the guy signing the print in the photo from the first update WAS Ken Marino all along.  100% sure of it now.

 

Update #3: This article from LA Weekly confirms yet again the presence of Ken Marino.