Saturday night we found ourselves in Chinatown for the opening of Mind Your Mannerisms at Jai & Jai, a gallery tucked discretely along Spring Street north of Cesar Chavez.  Highly regarded in Los Angeles’ architectural community, Jai & Jai is known for staging smart conversations at the intersection of art and architecture.  

We arrived on the early side, but the place was already packed wall to wall. Granted the gallery itself is quite small.  More like a large hallway, it opens out into a shared courtyard, where we found alcohol, music and—oh, thank god—an abundance of fresh air.

Upon arriving, we spotted a lavishly framed curatorial statement by Endemic, the Oakland based design office led by Clark Thenhaus, with contributors  Sofia Anastasi, Sean Gentry, Sarah Herlugson, Trenton Jewett, Brian McKinney, Taylor Metcalf, Mitchell Price, and Tyler Smith.

According to the wall text, the exhibit speculates on alternative expressions for the Victorian turret typology through 10-foot-tall models and a series of drawings conceived in a mannerist approach… Right. Well, if that entire sentence just went way over your head, you are welcome to join the club (we’ve got jackets). And we thought art speak was bad. At least no one used the word “juxtaposition”.

After finding our conceptual bearings (thank you, Google) we spent the rest of the evening observing the dressed to chill crowd (pink jumpsuit for the win!) and chatting with owner Jomjai Srisomburananont who bounced around all night, giving hugs, welcoming strangers, and making us all feel like guests in her home away from home.

At one point, beer in hand, we stood in awe at the transformation of the space, with actual turrets built out from the walls. People navigated ever so carefully (or not so carefully—ahem, woman who placed a glass of wine on the art—we saw you). We also momentarily reveled in the entirely new-to-us creative crowd—older, hip, diverse—an untapped social mecca if you will. Is this where they keep all the cool kids of ARTchitecture? (If that’s not a thing, it is now). We’ll have to come back for the next show to find out for sure.