{The map for what could have been my 50-mile, Saturday evening gallery commute.}

Note: Credit for this idea goes to both my friend I.R. and Gustav Metzger’s project, Reduce Art Flights.

This past Saturday, I was confronted with a relatively typical Saturday night—driving all over the Southland for gallery openings. Interesting shows on my radar included Cirrus Gallery, the Luckman Gallery at CSULA, Outpost For Contemporary Art and a variety of shows at Bergamot Station. According to google maps, round trip would be just over 50 miles. But with all these shows happening at approximately the same time, I just gave up and went to one show.

Of course, galleries keep more hours than just openings but often, the incentive to go to openings (besides the talking, socializing and people watching) is to catch a bunch of shows at once. Opening nights in LA’s gallery scene are increasingly fractured—seems like there are openings in Chinatown every weekend and even the Culver City row can’t coordinate anything.

It might be better for business to stagger these events but in my opinion, openings should be coordinated both in areas where galleries are concentrated but across the city as well. One destination per night/weekend would help the environment by reducing art driving and could result in larger turnouts for the galleries and support for their artists. Most of us do not buy anything, but we sure are talking about it, critiquing it, and of course, blogging. In that sense, it’s important to get a crowd.

So, if you are reading this dear gallerists, please find a way to coordinate your openings. Start an email list, a google group, something, and get your shit together, because we want to go to your openings.
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