“This sculpture of Louis C.K.’s head as a melting scoop of ice cream will pair beautifully with the de Kooning in my collection,” muses a small goateed private art curator in my imagination, as he walks around the second annual “Is This Thing On?” exhibit in LA this Friday. “And this ink and watercolor painting of Whitney Cummings, a clear descendent of Cézanne’s Bathers, to be sure, but with its own charms-” He stops in his tracks, almost spilling his tiny clear plastic cup of wine on his many pewter rings. “Why, look at the clarity of the birds’ wings, the vibrancy, the immediacy of their flight, as if they’d just seen a billboard ad for Whitney. I must purchase this piece.” He takes out his checkbook. “How much?”
