At last night’s RETNA opening, the room was thumping and vodka was served on the rocks. It may have felt like more of a warehouse party than an art exhibit, but don’t be fooled: According to Vladimir Restoin-Roitfeld, who co-organized the event with Andy Valmorbida, 90 percent of the works had sold. And that was mid-event.
Perhaps better known for their playboy circle’s partying ways, the two have recently been helping relatively undiscovered artists find the spotlight. Last year, Richard Hambleton was their project; now, it’s L.A. street artist Marquis “RETNA” Lewis, who got on their radar via Pat Tenore, founder of California skater label RVCA. The New York show is the first of three (sponsored by Bombardier and VistaJet) planned in different cities around the world.
As the likes of Lily Donaldson and Brian Atwood circulated, the artist was applying paint to an installation in the center of the room. His hieroglyphic canvases lined the surrounding walls. “I walked in and it felt like a club in the early nineties, with Keith Harings all over,” Stephen Gan noted. “But when you come up close it’s definitely not that—it’s a lot more, sort of, typographic.”
“It’s not only fashion—I’m trying to present him to a broad audience,” Restoin-Roitfeld explained. He did a better job of it during the gallery portion of the evening than at the Indochine after-party, where Mary-Kate Olsen was squeezed into a banquette and Carine Roitfeld got up out of her seat to pose for Olivier Zahm. But there, too, the room was thumping—and vodka, in some cases, was served on the rocks.
— Darrell Hartman
Source: http://www.style.com/peopleparties/parties/scoop/fashionweek-021111_RETNA_Celebration
