Spent all day Sunday—yes, all day, from 10 to 4—going from Broad event to Broad event to celebrate the opening of BCAM. The morning began with a visit to the recently re-installed Broad Art Foundation in Santa Monica. This is usually a hard ticket to get. But this year it was easier, because the hard ticket to get was an invite to the Sunday lunch at BCAM. Thankfully, we got into both. (And, sadly, Tom Cruise was at neither.)

Money shots and blow-by-blow after the jump. As always, click on images to see them large.

• 10:35 a.m.: Arrive at the parking lot at the beach in Santa Monica just behind a group of weekend motorcyclists.
• 10:40 a.m.: Get checked off and pick up our Broad Collection catalogue.

• 11:03 a.m.: There are mini-cheeseburgers by the Andreas Gurskys. Also on the menu: potato onion puffs, salmon and egg sandwiches. You could make a meal of it. And we did. Several times.

• 11:05 a.m.: Admire the sandwich art.
• 11:10 a.m.: A small mob assembles for mimosas in front of the Jeff Wall photographs.

• 11:15 a.m.: Spot Ed Moses in line for a cappuccino on the Foundation’s rooftop.

• 11:17 a.m.: The best piece of the day: eXelento (2004), above, by Ellen Gallagher, made with ink, paper, resin and plastilene.

• 11:35 a.m: In the hallway of the Broad Foundation: There are photo portraits of all the superstar artists of the 60s-90s by Timothy Greenfield Sanders. All looking very very serious. There are 12 in all, including Jasper Johns, Mike n’ Ellsworth Kelly, John Baldessari, Jenny Holzer, Chuck Close, Ed Ruscha, Richard Serra (looking very very very serious) and Keith Haring (above). Not pictured: Julian Schnabel.

• 12:05 p.m.: Overhead by the Franz Ackerman paintings: “These paintings are amazing. They’re cryptic. Or apocalyptic.”

• 12:28 p.m.: This enthusiastic young art lover gives a Stephan Balkenhol bas relief two thumbs way up, Lynndie England style!
• 1:15 p.m.: We finally make our way over to BCAM for part two of Broadapalooza.

• 1:40 p.m.: Arrive at the new Renzo Piano-designed BCAM building, which has accents in Target red…and which bears an uncanny resemblance to our old junior high school.

• 1:42 p.m.: Admire the Charles Ray sculpture.

• 1:45 p.m. Our third mimosa must mean it’s time to check out Chris Burden’s installation.

• 1:50 p.m.: Time to hit the coffee line.

• 1:57 p.m. The best new ride in L.A.! The elevator at BCAM goes down real slow, the roof lights up and, in case you have vertigo, there are railings to hold onto. We heard that it got stuck twice today.

• 2:10 p.m. Celebrity sighting!! MoCA director Jeremy Strick, in quiet conference with his wife.

• 2:15 p.m. Inside the biggest and brightest floor of BCAM: It’s a total Das Koonzhalle. Andy Warhol’s corn flakes boxes are relegated to a corner in a side gallery. Anyone find this ironic?

• 2:30 p.m.: Overheard, in the Damien Hirst area: “Do they realize that in 50 years most of this will only be fit for the junkyard?”

• 2:35 p.m.: You’ve seen the art, now buy the t-shirt.

• 3:15 p.m.: Consume the first of several “deconstructed borscht” appetizers.

• 3:30 p.m.: Broad Foundation director Joanne Heyler with the Project Runway designer who created her gown for the previous evening’s gala. (If anyone can remember this guy’s name, let us know. We’re not very good with the cable TV references.) Update: It’s Santino Rice.

• 3:45 p.m.: Allegedly, this is the tent where Eli and Edythe Broad boogied the night away to Lionel Richie this past Saturday night. (Now try getting that image out of your mind.)

• 4:00 p.m.: Chocolicious dessert buffet: which included lavender chocolate cake, coconut pineapple truffles, raspberry tarragon truffles and olive (yes, olive) chocolates.

• 4:01 p.m.: We thought the above, in the LACMA parking lot, was an installation. But it wasn’t. Time to go home.

“Forty-five thousand? Really?”

“I’m so lost.”

Most repeated expression of the day: “…and, you know, the artist attended Yale, and s/he’s been on the cover of…”

Eva + Adele at Art Basel.

Paul McCarthy’s chocolate buttplug Santas. I hate to admit this, but they smelled really good.

Basel by the numbers:

Number of skulls represented in pieces of art at Art Basel: 55.

Number of facelifts I spotted during my three hours at the fair: 167.

Pimpin’: Dzine at Deitch. I coulda used one of these to get around the convention center.

Rug by Can Sayinli and Jorgen Evil Ekvol. This is what my head felt like after I’d surveyed all the merch.

At the ShangArt Supermarket, where empty goods (literally) were on sale. Update: See a more complete view of this installation at AFC and the WSJ.

This delightful little number is called Hedge Fund. How apropos.

The art media is so totally weird. (Actually, this is Andrey Bartenev.)

While I counted facelifts, Celso was busy working the floor.

See more photos of the Basel Frazzle on my Flickr.

The sculpture is currently on display at MoMA in NYC. In Boston, you can see Bourgeois’s work at the Institute of Contemporary Art through March 2, 2008. Read more about her here.

Posted by C-Monster.

Mahomi Kunikata dressed up as a Kuromu, one of her characters, during her opening at the Jack Tilton Gallery in NYC. (There’s video, too.) More photos after the jump.

Mahomi Kunikata dressed up as a Kuromo during her opening at the Jack Tilton Gallery in NYC.

A painting by Kunikata, above. Details of a larger work, below.

Read more about Kunikata here.

“It’s an artwork, not a Rolls Royce.”

MoCA employee to friend: “Have you seen the boutique? It’s soooo hot.”

“I like this one, it’s like the same thing. But different.”

Most repeated expression of the night: “How long is the line?’

All the dazed people in this foto are staring at Murakami, who is standing just below the bottom edge of this frame.

My overview after the jump.

OVERVIEW:

• The Vibe: Manga Convention meets Sunset Boulevard night club, complete with big bouncers and chicks with fake tits.
• The Highlight: The Louis Vuitton boutique, where people queued up to look at purses…that looked an awful lot like purses that you can also find at Nordstrom’s. (See pix here.)
• The piece that made me say, Whoa this dude is better at marketing than Shepard Fairey: The ground-floor room full of artfully lit Mura-merch.
• The moment I realised that Murakami was getting the last laugh: Standing in line to get into the Louis Vuitton boutique.

Murakami, above, spent the evening besieged by autograph seekers, cam phone clicking and even a stylish Sikh woman toting one of his Louis Vuitton bags. (No, I didn’t get a foto. The museum staff was being a total freak about anyone with a camera, so all pix are surreptitious.)

This was the line to get into the “boutique” where they were hawking a limited edition Louis Vuitton bag, that I believe cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,000. Like an asshole, I stood in it, too.

I wish I knew what this was all about. We report, you decide.

You can read the L.A. Times story here.

Posted by C-Monster