For the art enthusiast, it is hard to deny the excitement of the fall openings. 

Whether it's New York or Los Angeles, Berlin, Paris or you-name-it, there is a brightness in the art world that surrounds the first few weeks of September.

It is a strange phenonmena: running from gallery to gallery, barely glimpsing the work (but taking it in anyway), stopping for a how-are-you or  a couple of let's-have-drinks.  It is really the utmost in frivolity and butterfly-flits...I go back year after year, never tiring of the ride.

And, incredibly enough, this phenomena seems to play out in city after city, no matter how far away.  In Paris last weekend with writer and art historian, Frances Guerin, we strolled the streets of Turenne and Sainte Claude moving from one crowd to the next, following the noise, taking pics, and dodging the occasional rain drop. Mostly people stand outside in the street in front of the galleries, so it is a social gauntlet to get in to see the artist and their work. We were even refused a glass of juice sans alcool (absolutement pas!) at one mini-party (a shame because the glasses were quite nice).  We gawked at the people, and snipped at the work and just had a ball.  The night ended in the rue de Rosiers where Chez Marianne was impossibly packed. 

The openings are not really about the art, are they?... although certainly the art is at the center of  these extravaganzas.  But who can see it for all the people, much less spend reflective time with all the distractions.  No - it is the plain and simple celebration that we come for - the celebration of creativity.  Whether it be intellectual or whimsical, political or horrifying, awesome or restful...we create.  And this is what draws us like the moth to the flame.

A few highlights from last week's openings:

• Galerie Eva Hober: German artist, Maike Freess, shows new drawings
• Dominique Fiat Galerie - Philippe Gronon photographs (see our Gallery Hop review)
• Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin - Sophie Calle & Jesper Just
• Galeri Karsten Greve - Yiorgos Kordakis photographs (see Gallery Hop review)

(Images: Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin front steps; Frances Guerin arriving at openings; @ArtSlant)

- georgia