THE ART CROWD GOES IN-CROWD

Gallery

Painting the Town Red

Parties that spotlight art have people lining up to join the scene.

» LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY

Baltimore-based electronic musician Dan Deacon did without a stage and played his computer gadgetry right on the patio amid the ecstatic crowd. Overheard in the ladies' room about 10:30 p.m.: "Dan Deacon is a genius."

But there was a second layer of music, one that has accompanied all of the Hirshhorn parties: the sound of the security buzzers going off every time a boozy partier bumped into a work of art.

-- R.B.

Adidas Originals store, "Bam Bam Dilla:

Traveling Riddims," Nov. 21:

The Art Whino gallery seems to devote as much energy to partying as it does to selling art. (Whino/wino, get it?) This was the first of two parties thrown by the gallery to celebrate the opening of "Bam Bam Dilla: Traveling Riddims," Ben Floeter's portraits of '70s reggae stars painted on old suitcases.

Rather than just hanging the art on the walls at the retro boutique in Georgetown, Art Whino hired Adidas-clad models to stand around the store's perimeter holding the painted luggage. That made it awkward to stare at the portraits of musicians such as U-Roy, Lee "Scratch" Perry and King Tubby for long without feeling that the art was staring back at you.

Gallery owner Shane Pomajambo described the party as a favor to its customers who don't want to schlep to Prince George's County. Last spring, Art Whino moved from its Alexandria digs to a new space in National Harbor.

Small glitch with the "Bam Bam Dilla" event: The DJ didn't show up until the last hour (some confusion about a bus from New York), and partiers were stuck with Adidas's shopper soundtrack -- not quite the Afrobeat and cumbia music that would have jibed with the art and livened up the gathering.

-- R.B.

Civilian Art Projects, Kid Congo Powers and Quintron, Nov. 14:

The restaurant and theater district at Seventh and D streets NW was shuttered by 11:30 p.m., but a few floors up from street level, at Civilian Art Projects gallery, the party -- a concert featuring "guitar stylist" Kid Congo Powers and New Orleans organ-rocker Quintron -- was just getting started.

This was an old-school, over-30 crowd, full of vintage-clothing-clad musicians and filmmakers.

In the muggy front room, Kid Congo Powers, the one-time guitarist for the Cramps and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, played raunchy electronica that was the perfect ambient noise for this bubbling scene. Then, the surreal happened: Miss Pussycat, a petite woman who accompanies Quintron (and vice versa), climbed into a six-foot-tall aqua contraption in a corner of the gallery and put on a puppet show. The crowd of 200, beers in hand, crouched on the floor or leaned against the back walls to watch.

Amid it all, Ian Svenonius, once the lead singer of great old Washington bands Nation of Ulysses and the Make-Up, played proud host, dancing and chatting up everyone in the fog-filled room as Quintron rocked on.

-- L.R.