Ok, I tried to make it over to the Metropolitan last night but it just didn’t work out - and then I saw there was an “interesting” opening in lower Manhattan (for which there was no website - btw) called “Art and Wine in Tribeca“.   Well, I’m the target audience - I love Art and I love Red Wine - so there!  The theme and name of the show was called “Shape Shift: Selections 2006″ and it’s also the name of the company of the curator of this show, Lesley Abi-Hanna.

I made my way over to 106 Franklin Street, 2nd floor - and since I got there right at the beginning of the opening - which was for 1 night only - it was sorta empty. Not to worry - by the time I left, an hour later, there were many people who had showed up to this “loft” opening - and plenty of wine and beer were flowing - and everyone seemed to have a good time and some Art was even sold too!  A couple of red dots appeared next to a few of the paintings by the four or five artists who were showing their work - Paul N. Grech, Omar Khouri (pdf file), Kyle Nouse, Hatem Imam, and Jo Mikals-Adachi.

 I think Lesley Abi-Hanna, and her husband, a music producer for Virgin Records, are tapping into an audience of people who want to gave a good time and drink wine while viewing art - judging from the response - maybe she’s onto something.  Art Parties - seem like something that are beginning to take off.  It’s not really new - and the prices of the art were reasonable - and the art work was fairly good.   What surprised me, Lesley’s taste in art was fairly good - I would not go so far as to say anything I saw knocked me over - few works and artists do that for me - but I saw good work overall - worth purchasing - a selection of good art -  artists who are really “shifting” and improving.

Here’s some pictures from the show (before it got crowded).

 

Ok, so the loft looked empty at 7:30 PM, it had about 150 people in it when I left at 8:30 PM.  I think there will be more shows like this and here’s Lesley Abi-Hanna’s  number if you want to be part of her next shows @ 201-344-9609.

BTW, Lesley did not ask me to do this - I like people trying to do the right thing - that’s what Lesley Abi-Hanna, an event planner, did - let’s hope she does more of these shows and I like the Art and I like Red Wine.