Imagine my excitement when I discovered the David Downton exhibition at Minotti in LA would still be running when I arrived in the US in June. How hastily I switched my landing from San Fran to LA! Imagine my disappointment when I arrived at the Beverly Boulevard store and got the head-to-toe look of displeasure from the LA hipsters tapping away at their lap-tops in the centre of the room (Facebook perhaps?), and then proceeded to make my way around the store.
I’m not sure what bothered me the most – certainly that particular brand of snobbery is nothing new and laughable at best, so it’s down to a) the fact that the artworks were facing the huge sunny windows, causing some to be actually unviewable, b) many were placed above any giant’s eye-line so viewing was tricky & exasperating (especially since the whole idea of going to the show was to see his work close up), c) some of the works (including the Nureyev portrait) were in the back room, and d) – my piece of resistance – the staff didn’t know what “prints vs originals” meant, much less know which of the works were which!
I still enjoyed seeing the works but I did feel sorry for Downton who, even if most of the works were existing, still put a lot of work into this show. The sofas were nice though!
