Sunday, November 30, 2008

Fight Club, "Fixation," Nov. 14:

Getting to Fight Club, an underground skateboarding, art and music space near the Convention Center, involved stumbling down a brick, high-heels-unfriendly alley and waiting in a long line. In the rain.

Until the opening of "Fixation," a photography exhibit that was part of FotoWeek DC, the space was pretty much one of Washington's great hipster myths. (Even the name of the place is taken from the 1999 movie about a secret society: First rule of Fight Club, you do not talk about Fight Club.)

"We're not open. We're not anything," co-founder Dan Zeman told me warily. "We don't do any business here."

And that was part of the allure; more than 700 people -- posh galleristas, Howard students, moms, well-groomed men in blazers, skateboarders -- poured into that night's bash, which, despite the crowd, felt like a house party, with kegs and the whole standing-around thing.

The exhibit was sponsored by the Pink Line Project, which curates events in support of visual arts, and Ten Miles Square, a new group that fosters photography in the city. Philippa Hughes, Pink Line's founder, attributed the evening's success to a scene that's gone "viral." "You didn't need to announce it on the radio. . . . They just came, I don't know."

-- L.R.