There are certain things that are guaranteed to make me anxious: lines, crowds, and balloon animals. On Tuesday night I found myself waiting in a line that lead to a crowd. This sort of thing would be expected during Fashion Week in Paris, or CoasterFest at Six Flags, but in London it was at an The Whitecube Gallery during Frieze . Frieze is an international contemporary art fair that happens every October for four days. While there were still technically two days till the official start the city was hungry for festivities. The Whitecube was celebrating the grand opening of its newest location in the soon to be gentrified area of Bermondsey. The night’s event wasn’t publicized on its website but the message was spread through hundreds of Blackberries, iPhone, iPads (and possibly one ironic Razr), and the crowds arrived in droves. I’m on the very outside, the metaphorical suburbs, of the art world, so I was only privy to the opening through my professor who suggested to our Anthropology of Art class that we attend to get a visual representation of the art world. Never one to half-ass an assignment, I decided the 2 blocks, hundreds of people and metal fence that separated me from the event didn’t provide the best observation; I had to get in.

Having attended similar frenzied events in the past (see aforementioned Paris Fashion Week and Six Flag’s CoasterFest), I am self-aware enough to know that a rare competitive side is unearthed from within me in such environments. My mind, body and spirit becomes obsessed with the singular task of achieving entry. Strollers have been toppled, grannies have been pushed and Six Flags season passes have been revoked. I began questioning my cohorts, Katie and Erica, about our chances as if they possessed insider knowledge. Erica had provided us a stealth line-cut which gave us an early advantage. There were two gargantuan lines that fed into a clog of people fighting for the closest spot by two exhausted bouncers and the entry point they fiercely protected. Beyond the bouncers was a once expansive area now filled with crowds of chosen people, and beyond those still was the actual gallery which was light up like the gates of heaven.

While there were bouncers and a velvet rope, successful protocol was unclear. Those inside seem to fit into two categories: the wealthy or the weird. I clearly did not look wealthy and most of my weirdness wasn’t expressed outwardly. How could I compete with afro’d women in metal high heels? That being said, we had something the business-card carrying didn’t— the unwavering student desire to consume free champagne. I possessed at this budget point a complete disregard for self-respect when in the presence of free champagne, beer or really any beverage. As we continued debating our chances the line magically moved into the bottleneck; we were being moved as one wave toward the clearing. The bouncer was counting the bodies he was letting in and as we snaked inside he closed the rope shut immediately behind us. The last ones chosen!

There was a collective euphoric feeling among the group, and a sudden yet distinct feeling of superiority against those still in line. Our first act as our most glamourous selves was finding the free alcohol and consuming as much as we could without the aid of a funnel. I surveyed the crowd while holding two flutes of champagne, pretending I was baring the burden of holding the second glass for bladder-weak friend. The surgical lighting of the gallery cast a glow over the gathering, illuminating the various shades of black clothing. A surprising amount of parents who brought their stroller-bound children, all of whom were audibly declaring their distaste for the evening. You would think that toddlers would appreciate the sparkle of Hirst or the gloss of Hume. At this point we were buzzed in an expensive way, which gave us the courage to be seen underneath the crack-den harsh lighting of gallery. We headed for line number two.

At a certain point in the new crowd I lost the ability to be in control of my body, instead moving as part of one collective mass. The bouncer actually had to clarify to the crowd that we were queuing for the Whitecube and not the S.S. Titanic. Past the defeated bouncer, the inside was very much the contemporary art heaven it promised to be. Appearing like the expansive waiting room for the hippest dentist in the world, the minimalist aesthetic permeated everything from the name displays to a majority of the artwork. Scale was the only thing brought to excess, from the gallery itself to the artworks on display. The gallery provided enough clearance for a standard-issue tank to travel through comfortably. The scale created an odd sense of sparsity within the people exploring the galleries. Alcohol allows you to do many things with greater (imagined) skill: dance, flirt, lose cell-phones. Alcohol does not make contemplating contemporary art easier, and this becomes tragically difficult to hide at a gallery opening. Attempting to walk gingerly around gave me Bambi-like grace; my embarrassment heightened when compared to the “gallerinas” moving about with ease, unfazed by their 6 inch stilts and steering themselves with a flute of champagne that refuses to spill.

Katie and Erica passed quickly through a busy entryway before a clipboard comes into my view and an aggressively polite voice lets me know that “This is a private area”. I raised my hands up slightly and shrugged letting her know that not only wasn’t just fine with this, I was FINE with this— I defined apathetic, I was post-modern apathetic. In actually I was “fine with this” in a 4-drink-in kind of way. I backed up and let a model I recognized as the new face of Clinque through. Whatever. My internal dialogue was fiercely encouraging, “I can casually but confidently mingle. I look fine. I look sober!” “Do not resort to feigning interest in your phone!” I listened to my inner-self, because I did have a purpose here…I was doing homework.

The body-crushing crowds from before seemed a distant past while walking around the barren galleries. A group of thirty-something women laughed next to some businessmen. They were the type of women who were able to justify Vogue calling “the back the new erogenous zone”, the type of women who look casual in an $800 dress, and the type of women I’d hate if I were a girl but love as a gay man. I walked over to a mammoth Damine Hirst piece, a gold, cabinet filled with meticulously placed pills. Or—to that group of skinny women—a cabinet of appetizers. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass casing and realized I needed to be somewhere darker. Escaping the gallery, I moved quickly to the back foyer area populated with other stragglers and wanderers. A thick black curtain separated this area from either the outside or another private room. Despite my texts to Erica going unanswered I knew I wasn’t ready to end the night, I would take my chances behind curtain number one.

Moving stealthy with another group I slipped in; successfully sneaking into the free, public video gallery. A took a seat in the back, happy to fade into the dark. On screen a scraggly man licked technicolor paint off a woman’s chest. I’ve never been a fan of home-videos. The woman who had previously appeared unconscious suddenly awoke with a fury, yelling at the man and leaving in a hurry. The next seen was from the point of view of a cockroach, shuffling along the floor of an art studio. The cockroach had an internal narration; apparently he was really pleased to be in a real studio. Suddenly the camera reveals a life-size adult male puppet masturbating on a couch nearby. The craftsmanship of the puppet was not particularly great. There’s only so much detail you can achieve with felt. It was clear what would occur next to everyone but the jovial insect; in the words of the gallery handout I later read, “the cockroach comes to a sticky end”.

Suddenly the abstract art and suntanning light seemed cleansing and I needed to be back in that environment immediately. The lot of us filed out of the curtained room, choosing not to warn those waiting to be violated. My phone rang, Erica calling from the inner-circle…

“Where are you?!” She said, over loud background commotion.

“I’m still in the gallery. I wasn’t let into the private area,” I tried to confess in a hushed tone.

“It’s private?!”

“Hold on, I’ll walk over there. Come to the door and motion me in.”

I snaked through the crowd again, hopeful that the previous gallery attendant wouldn’t be present or wouldn’t remember my plebeian face. Erica was now visible in the distance, her joyous expression proclaiming, “this is a land filled with promise and free of masturbating puppets”. I made sure I visibly connected with Erica, beginning our conversation even before I was in, to show this new male attendant I really did belong inside.

“Sorry we aren’t letting more people in here.”

This solidified my status as socially masochistic. Luckily Erica was less defeated and with as much as a puppy dog face the man made an exception. The inside was comprised of three additional galleries, shockingly not carved out of marble and attended to by cherubs. They did house multi-million dollar pieces of artwork though, and the rest of the people there seemed equally as expensive. I felt like the puppy waiting at the dinner table, hoping a scrap of glamour would fall to my level. But new champagne confidence was being freely passed, and after my struggle I wasn’t going to let something as small as reality ruin this part of the night.

We struggled to balance our collective giddiness while appearing cool and composed. I was particularly paranoid that at some point I would accidentally reveal myself as a fraudulent attendee and be politely, but publicly, escorted outside. But it was a point in the night were even those who were meant to be in this section had a bit too much to drink, creating a strange feeling of the world’s most expensive house party. Over-zealous introductions were being made between curators and collectors. Middle-aged men were telling awful jokes to uncomfortable female bartenders. A supermodel was yawing with her friends, all wearing dresses that were see-through to some degree. Erica and Katie, both in Contemporary Art Masters programs, were particularly star-struck over Tracey Emin, who was talking unassumingly near us. The “Look-But-Don’t-Look” game was being played. We snuck off to yet another Hirst gallery to sneak photos. Back in the main VIP area the party was settling down, glasses were being collected, bottles being packed away and the socialites were heading back to their Bentley chariots. Our London public transit chariots awaited us.

The scene outside wouldn’t have been out of place in a pub lined street: empty cups, bottles, general debris. Despite my extreme newness to London, I get the sense that the galleries, museums, and art-collectives can be as active and social as the pubs and house parties. This is a city that holds art, and culture in general, to the highest degree the evidence of which is seen in every neighborhood and publication. Frieze may have been the big festival this week, but every following week with hold some other fair with just as many events. Eventually, perhaps, just maybe, people other than the bartenders will be able to greet me; but for now keeping close to attractive, young ladies seems to be working fine enough. That being said, if the next event includes another borderline pornographic video that ruins my image of puppets or other childlike wonders, I may have to re-evaluate my social destinations. London, keep things interesting, just don’t ruin my champagne buzz.