Los Angeles should be a city, given its size, location, burgeoning creative economy, and robust contemporary art scene, that hosts a major biennial or art fair. Perhaps this is a few years away given the economy or the difficulty in attracting arts cognoscenti to a distant location (yes, LA is hard to get to with that extra five hours of flying time). But the city has Art Los Angeles Contemporary (ALAC) since 2010 a small but influential art fair with a refreshing community sentiment supportive of local contemporary galleries. There are quite a few of them in this version of ALAC, but the sociology of a fair is far more interesting to observe as a marker of things to come. Good work is all over the fair but you have to really dig for it as it can get lost in the maze of booths that resemble a Fred Segal shopping boutique. In the fair format any good work can start to look like MFA work that is trying hard to emulate the latest issue of Art Forum magazine (this would of course never happen to Flash Art!).

After all, this is a market, the dealers want to sell and be seen, they are committed to some extent to their artists, and the crowd who came opening night was predominantly well heeled European American’s. That comments on class, education and race and the interest or lack thereof of contemporary art with people of color. For in truth, LA has a very rich and layered arts community that is inclusive of a multicultural constituency. The work on view is primarily the product of the contemporary art school or academy, an education normally affordable only to middle class EA’s.

However, in the midst of the throng there are some real discoveries, such as Night Gallery, located in Lincoln Heights area of LA, and open only from 10PM to 2AM. I was especially struck by the photo-composite by Peter Harkawik, entitled “Knocker and Charity Making Love (w/psychological objects)”. This kind of quirky representational narrative light box presentation sort of sums up the progressive work I find sympathetic to the great Hollywood tradition of storytelling.

The festive opening evening began with the recreation of Judy Chicago’s “Disappearing Environments”. Part of the region wide Pacific Standard Time Festival sponsored mainly by the Getty Foundation, Judy’s team drug in 25 tons of dry ice that began to evaporate in clouds of white smoke. At dusk, flares were lit and it became a remarkable noir vision of LA on fire.

At the end of the day, one of the most erotic and intriguing works of art was the tattoo on the well turned ankle of a 6’2” red head, called “Babies Breath”. Sometimes to see the best work you have to keep your head down.