It was a quieter first Thursday at 49 Geary than some others in recent memory, which I'm going to chalk up to the glorious weather outside rather than lack of excitement inside. The fourth floor enjoyed something closer to a party atmosphere due to two notable openings, Fan Ho's "A Hong Kong Memoir" at Modernbook Gallery and Isa Leshko's "Thrills and Chills" at Corden Potts, as well as the continuing buzz around Richard Learoyd's acclaimed "Presences" at Fraenkel.
Though sparser than last month's, the crowd was encouragingly diverse in age, race, and even tongue. The corridors of the building are always the most happening place on opening nights, and last night they hosted tanned, makeupless, braless gamines growling at each other in French, middle-aged Italian women wearing lots of makeup and, one can assume, sufficient underpinnings, bickering (although it always sounds like bickering, doesn't it?) with their men. Clusters of young Americans propped themselves up on Golgothan stilettos, clutching their plastic cups of white wine with one hand and texting virtuosically with the other. Some hood-ish-looking young men in 'do-rags dragged their pants behind them from gallery to gallery. Many people had expensive-looking priapic-lensed cameras dangling from their necks.Next: Fan Ho puts the "extra" in "extraordinary."
