Ha ha ha - no.
I’ve never been to a gallery opening interrupted by an internationally famous thief.
I’ve been to a few, as well as swanky parties that happen to be at a museum or art gallery (being in NYC and all). For the most part, they aren’t full of skinny Eurotrash in turtlenecks and ponytails or whatever.
I was in an etsy group for a while. One of the guys made bracelets out of old LPs then painted them.
He told us that someone asked to buy the thing* he put on the table to protect it when he was painting. He sold it for like $100 and did NOT tell the buyer its origin.
*don’t remember if it was a board or canvas
Well, it is the hero’s last day before retirement so he left his protective gear at the office. Where the cake, balloons, and other party stuff are just sitting there, waiting for our hero and the rest of the crew. Nothing gets eaten except for a little taste of the frosting when the hero finally returns.
If I had a nickel for every time that happened…
I have been to one art gallery opening with wine & cheese. The art was cool, mostly paintings done on skateboard decks. I was tempted to buy one, but it was around $400. I’m sure that had I purchased one it’d be worth much more now.
I think the most ridiculous example of this was in the movie Swordfish, where bad guy John Travolta is making computer hacker Hugh Jackman hack into a government site or something at gunpoint. Hack-man says it will take (X) time to hack the site, maybe two hours, Travolta says he has two minutes, or blammo. So Hackman starts furiously typing on a laptop, while bad guy mistress Halle Berry further distracts him by performing, uhhh, sexual favors on him at the same time, for some reason. Of course he manages to hack in with seconds left.
But only if you have the artist murdered.
When I was re-watching the original King Kong quite a while back I observed that in the scene where Kong destroys the tracks on the elevated train you see WAY too many people running by in front of Kong – the scene should’ve cleared long ago, when Kong showed up in that spot and started his rampage. But there were people, continuing to run between Kong and the position where the camera would be, long after any sensible person would’ve gotten under cover. And you had people leaning out of the windows in the nearby building, moving and gesticulating, in easy reach of the big ape.
It’s all done in the interests of a lively screen, of course. King Kong rampaging through a deserted city location where reasonable people have long since fled, looks believable enough, but it’s static. It you’ve got people moving around throughout, it looks as if it’s not shot on a static miniature set, and it gives not only a sense of life, but of scale, as well. You NEED those foolish spectators to fill the screen with motion and give it life.
In the Spiderman movie, it’s the same, although the CGI techniques are different from the “multiple layers of film elements run through the optical printer” of King Kong.
I have attended one, too, but it was more funky/bohemian than swanky. It was in the Naples neighborhood of Newport Beach CA. I was bummed because we got there too late, and the pieces I really coveted were already bought.
I’ve been to a few university MFA openings where there was wine in boxes.
I asked how much wine I should bring for the crowd, the gallery director said “I usually just buy one box.”
So, not swanky. I did kick it up a notch and spend about $150 for 6 bottles.
I dunno. What about all those Floridians who decided they were staying, dadgummit!, no matter how many times it was suggested that they evacuate.
I’m sure that, given the, for lack of a better word, “novelty” of a 20 story ape, and the lack of TV, social media, and even newspapers to get rushed stories with original graphics included in 1933, there were doubters, some reasonably so, and other people who ran to their homes, thinking they’d be safe there, so that’s why they were looking out of windows.
If what they did when they looked out, reached out, hung out, whatever, it was all directed as it happened with no intention of using the recorded track. It was laid over the footage of Kong, and everything trimmed and then developed, and a soundtrack was added.
The people reacting out the windows were being coached on what to do by the director, who didn’t really know what it was going to look like at the end.
I’ve organized a few art shows. Now I wish I had done a faux art theft mystery during one of the opening night parties.
Great way to drum up business!
You could even hire a fake detective: “Wait! No one leaves this gallery. These crayon-in-wax-paper pieces are priceless!”
But the wily thieves have used them to wrap sandwiches in the burglar team’s lunch boxes!
i just watched epi2 of East New York, a new cop show. I am a mild fan of the sad-sack and dry humor of Richard Kind.
Anyway the new Commander has just finished complaining she doesnt have enough detectives, when a body is found in her precinct, a High Profile Murder, one where the Big Cheese has said “I want all your resources on it!!!”- however, Manhattan South Homicide says they want the case. But the new Commander fights to get it.
Okay sure, “short on staff”- yeah- that’s Tuesday. But commanders do not want a high profile case, especially if they have several unsolved murders and pressure from the neighborhood to solve them.
I’ve seen many movies and TV episodes when a pregnant woman’s water breaks while she’s in a room full of people. I’ve been around a lot of pregnant women over the years, but I’ve never seen this happen in public. I suppose it must, sometimes, but I still think it belongs in this thread.
I know someone whose water broke at a restaurant while she was having lunch.