over-the-top openings

Last night, I attended the Buckminster Fuller and Paul McCarthy opening at the Whitney Museum (one of the few perks as summer intern). First, you get your staff ID or invitation checked by a series of guards (a la airport security). Then you enter the main floor and hear an uproar of music, laughter, and the swishing of two-buck chuck between the cheeks of rich donors, art world elite, and the staff members. Michael Jackson circa 1985 blares on the loudspeakers downstairs and the entire place has turned into a major, romping bar. Needless to say, I felt pretty under-dressed in my cute work dress and slightly tipsy from the bottle of Prosecco that my boyfriend and I shared at our pre-opening Italian dinner on the UWS.

Diving down into this mess of bubbly and baubles, we grabbed a drink and I attempted to find the five people that I know (and actually want to pay my respects to). Of course, I see the one person I'm avoiding. Hm. Off to the outdoor patio, where I find people smoking behind the polite "please do not smoke" sign. So New York. More people I don't know.

It is there that it dawns on me. I am inebriated with the hope of power and status in the art world and declare: "One day, I am going to be an important art historian. They are going to invite me to these soirees and I will regard their petty postcard with rigorous disapproval. How could they think I could possibly attend such a bestial formality as an opening! Don't they know that I am a famous art historian???? I'm too busy writing the next Sculpture in the Expanded Field! Humph!"

Ok -- so that's probably never going to happen, but for some reason, it all came out last night at the Whitney. That rush of power a lowly intern may never truly experience. Oh...and along with all the glitz and glamor, there was the art. But nø one goes for that apparently.