Cheech Marin in front of a Margaret Garcia painting at ArtHamptons (Patrick McMullan)
Friday at dusk, Cheech Marin–better known as the Mexican half of the 70s stoner comedy duo Cheech and Chong–cut into his 66th birthday cake. It was of the chocolate variety, with six joints on top as candles. There was some speculation amongst the crowd as to whether those are actual joints, or whether this was a “special” chocolate cake. (Answers: no, the candles were actually twisted Marlboro cigarettes; and also no, it was just delicious.)
Yes, it was a crazy party up at ArtHamptons, an art fair in its fifth year, where Mr. Marin, in addition to celebrating his birthday–sponsored by Hamptons.com–was also being honored as Patron of the Year for his collection of Chicano art (one of the largest in the world), which was on partial display at the Bridgehampton fair. One would assume that Mr. Marin and the beau monde associated with the Hamptons set (and New York art fairs in general) would mix about as well as tobacco and chocolate cake, but the comedian/actor/collector was quite at home in the festival’s white tents, where he was selling several pieces of from his collection.
One of the first things Mr. Marin told The Observer: “To separate collectors from the art process is facetious.” We made a note to not underestimate the intelligence of Mr. Marin, who, after all, once beat Anderson Cooper on Jeopardy.
“I like art fairs, I like galleries,” the television and film veteran told us, smiling broadly at the interruption of a young man who stopped and asked Mr. Marin to pose for a photograph miming smoking a spliff. “It’s the museums that are the most glacial of all,” he continued, without a break in the flow of conversation. “We have to conquer the museums; they are the final alma mater.”
The “facetious” comment was made in response to our questions regarding the controversy surrounding his 2008 exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, “Los Angelenos/Chicano Painters of L.A.: Selections From the Cheech Marin Collection.” Several critics had slammed Mr. Marin for not providing an all-encompassing history of the art form in the 50 or so collected works he had shown, arguing that single collector exhibits (especially when that collector has a famous name) undermine a “museum’s curatorial independence.”
“Promotional enthusiasm is not enough justification for an art museum to organize a show,” Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight had sniffed in his scathing take-down of the show, noting that Mr. Marin’s collection was mostly made up of artists he discovered himself. Describing the Chicano style of his collection as “Mexican art meets pop culture,” Mr. Marin’s telling of the LACMA dust-up was more about race than it was about how many people curated the exhibit.
“What could be more American than the melding of pop art with another culture’s heritage?” he asked rhetorically in front of two murals by L.A. graffiti artist “Werk.” Based on a series of Huffington Post essays on the same topic, Mr. Marin is in the middle of writing a book about the overwhelming Latino presence in the arts that has so far been given little attention. The book’s title is We Have You Surrounded, We Come in Peace.
“You can stand in front of a lava flow,” Mr. Marin mused, speaking again to the stodgy museum culture. “But why would you want to?” Mr. Marin plans to build a Chicano presence in these cultural landmarks the same way everyone does. “We’ll buy our way in,” he announced proudly. “We’ll be those donors whose names you see on the plaques.”
In the meantime, he’s more than happy to bask in the accolades of the somewhat-more-thawed Hamptons scene, which has welcomed him and his wife, Natasha Rubin, a classical pianist who will be playing Carnegie Hall later in the summer and was soon traveling to Australia to perform.
Ultra Violet
Though it was a day before the real crowds arrived–Mr. Friedman expected a record-breaking 30,000 visitors the next day, all making the pilgrimage out to the fair’s new location in the Sculpture Fields of Nova’s Ark–by Friday evening the word had already spread. Hamptons Magazine’s EIC Samantha Yanks chatted near Mr. Marin, while artists Jenna Lash and Wanda Murphy, whose work would be exhibited the next day at The Bego Ezair Gallery mingled amongst the crowd that included Elaine Sargent, Jonathan Goldberg, Unik Ernest, Elizabeth Derringer, and ArtHamptons president Rick Friedman.
Lisa Jack held court in her booth, unveiling all of the photos from her 1980 shoot with President Barack Obama, the most infamous of which made it onto the cover of Time magazine. (Perhaps in a nod to Mr. Marin, Ms. Jeff’s photos had quite a few of the POTUS toking on… something.)
“Can you believe,” she exclaimed in half-outraged/half-bemused tones, “my editor at the time hated these pictures? He said the composition was terrible.” We decided not to point out to the proud photographer that it was President Obama as a subject, not her lighting technique, that had generated so much buzz about her work.
Former Warhol superstar Ultra Violet (aka Isabelle Collin Dufresne) gave us a sneak-peak of her sculpture commissioned for the 9/11 Memorial Museum: a metallic structure of purple numerals that she wouldn’t let us leave until we guessed what the numbers tallied up to. (It was obviously “IX XI,” but we were a little slow after all that chocolate cake.)
Also in attendance was Jason McCoy, nephew of Jackson Pollock, whose centennial ArtHamptons is honoring. He is planning a larger retrospective of his uncle’s work in his New York galleries later this year, though when asked if Ed Harris would be involved (he directed and starred in the 2000 biopic Pollock, and two Pollock replicas painted by Mr. Harris for the film were being shown in an ArtHamptons exhibit), he replied tersely, “No Ed Harris. We just have the paintings.”
Like a little celebrity glamor ever undermined the artistic value of an art show. Didn’t Mr. McCoy know that only museums are too good for Hollywood?
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