“Los Angeles is 72 suburbs in search of a city.” —Dorothy Parker

Through the pendulum swings of expansion-and-contraction in the global art market, I’ve noticed an uptick in the use of new-wave esoteric vernacular—typically a distinctly West Coast phenomenon—applied to an international stage. Everyone wants to talk “vibes” and “energy” in regards to the art scene and its surrounding commerce. As someone who likes to tell people he’s in the business of magic, it’s been a fun exercise to reconsider my life in the arts from a vibes-based perspective. (Please note: I’m an eternal optimist.)

Circa 2002, I lived in San Francisco. The city was suffering through the dot-com crash and the country was just starting to figure out what “post-9/11” meant, but to a perennially drunk and drugged-up twenty-two year old fresh-out-of-undergrad Los Angeles transplant, it felt ALIVE. I could afford my $500 a month rent by working part-time at an East Bay restaurant in the Gourmet Ghetto, all I needed was a bicycle and a BART card to get around, and I was shameless enough to pester the local promoters to cut the line and get a free drink or ten at the Arrow Bar, Frisco Disco, Prince House, and Blow Up parties, and squeeze in the side doors of Bottom of the Hill and 924 Gilman. The Bay Area always had a soft spot for aimless misfits intoxicated with counterculture, and I was more than happy to play the part. I didn’t want a job out of college, I wanted community validation. At parties, I told people I was a writer; in truth, my biggest publisher was Craig’s List. I’d post anonymous, ironic missed connections and “lost and found” notices: “your navel piercing got caught on my studded belt,” and “I was hoping for a different kind of bump,” type of stuff. It was a tight scene, pre-social media, and everybody knew everybody. The people and clubs mentioned in my uploads would find them online and I would occasionally overhear discussions of the situations I had fabricated. I felt closet-famous, celebrity-adjacent, and would approach recognizable public figures as if I was an equal. After one all-nighter, a friend and I spotted someone who looked a lot like Steven Tyler leaving the now-defunct Energie Jeans store in the Castro. I waved to him like I would an old friend. He looked at us and shouted in a voice that sounded a lot like Steven Tyler: “Energy! Man! The name says it all!”

Circa 2016, I was back in Los Angeles, six years into my librarian/archivist/art book fair curator job at Gagosian. The Trump era was dawning, but to a perennially drunk and drugged-up young professional, the city felt ALIVE. My now ex-wife and I had managed to buy a “1950s Neutra with Unfortunate 90s Makeover” (according to one real estate blog) in the neighborhood across from the Philosophical Research Society in Los Feliz just after the nadir of the market five years prior. After work, I’d DJ parties at Tenants of the Trees, The Friend Bar, and wherever would let HOW MANY VIRGINS?, my print and party project with Ava Berlin, instigate a happening and let me and my friends drink for free. The late witch doctor L was omnipresent at our gatherings, live spellcasting and reading tarot cards; Devendra Banhart and Nikolai Haas gave freehand tattoos at others; the famous Domina Colette applied her special brand of discipline to misbehaving partiers at another hazily memorable fete. MDMA and cocaine-fueled after-after hours went till work the next morning on my Los Feliz patio or within Stephen Neidich’s Tin Flats studio space. EVERYTHING was a reason to celebrate: there were openings downtown or in Culver City every weekend, Piero Golia hosted frequent salons at his Chalet, there were weekly events at The Underground Museum, and Aaron Moulton’s esoteric curatorial practice enabled by Gagosian and Nicodim required psychonautic exploration. Every week or so, The New York Times, New York Magazine, or The New Yorker would publish an article about people from that coast “discovering” LA. I recall one in which Natalie Portman said something along the lines of: “there’s such great energy there, it feels like Paris.”

Circa 2026, I’m in a new place just over Laurel Canyon in Studio City. It feels a world apart from over the hill, until I bump into Jeremy Allen White or Johnny Knoxville walking my dog or at the weekend farmer’s market. Is the valley cool, or am I just getting old? Earlier in the decade, perhaps inspired by Natalie Portman, a number of major galleries moved west and pushed the nucleus of the city’s art economy from downtown and Culver City over to Western. We’ve all read countless words about how the market contraction forced a few of them to go into retrograde and return home, and more locals to shutter completely. I occasionally hear grumbling from cohorts and acquaintances who live elsewhere that LA has lost its edge, and Paris is the new Paris. Friends, let me tell you, as a now two-plus year sober middle-aged art world lifer, THE CITY FEELS ALIVE. Just one year out from the fires, Altadena is already rebuilding, and displaced artists like Kelly Akashi, John Knuth, and Paul McCarthy are seen out and about weekly at openings throughout the city. Sara Hantman has moved Sea View and her residence westward in an exciting new operational model, and Elliot Hundley continues to live, work, and host lively gatherings out of his downtown compound, while Nicodim, Night, Vielmetter, and Ghebaly carry on drawing the real heads deep into the Arts District. Private powerhouse The Broad and small-but-mighty Santa Monica non-profit De Vaz Projects are giving the late, great, and unconscionably overlooked Robert Therrien and Steven Arnold their respective dues to much fanfare. Recent Kordansky and Pace openings by LA favorites Sayre Gomez and Lauren Quin had crowds that appeared to kiss four figure tallies. And how many times have you heard Made in helLA and Casual Encountersz mentioned in these pages? In spite of—perhaps because of—the current local, national, and international turmoil, it feels like our community is refocusing its energy on the arts for its own salvation.

This past weekend, people lined-up hundreds deep outside of Perrotin on Pico (where I was recently hired as a Senior Director) for the Takashi Murakami exhibition and pop-up shop, some waiting as long as four hours to get inside—the Superflat exhibition he curated for MOCA’s Pacific Design Center in 2001 helped establish the artist as an international phenomenon, and his star shines as brightly as ever—the crowd was throbbing with excitement. The street felt ALIVE. Outside, a confused young couple walking by the madness waved me down, asked what all the fuss was about. My answer: “Energy! Man! The name says it all!”