Art: Going for Baroque

Gallery openings in Manhattan are beginning to rival the opera in silken elegance and the subway for sheer squeeze. Last week’s opening of the new Marlborough-Gerson Gallery looked as if it was getting in the last word, if not the entire madding crowd in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment. In chilly evening winds, great red and green banners flapped from flagpoles outside the gallery’s sixth floor facade above 57th Street. Nothing could dissuade the 2,50 art lovers, beehives and beatle-cuts alike, from donning black tie and white brocade theater coats to come to look at one another.

Though Marlborough-Gerson is reputedly the world’s largest gallery (11,000 sq. ft.), the place was so packed that at the height of the party, invited guests could not even get out of the elevator. Finally, firemen ordered the doors closed to newcomers until the crowd cleared. It was really too late. “You can’t see the pictures,” moaned a lovely thing in a floor-scraping green gown. “You can’t even see the people. You can just feel them.”

Waiters wedged through the crowd trying to serve champagne and French biscuits. Only the sculpture was unmoved by the crush. The outstretched leg of Rodin’s Iris was a hazard for every passing guest. Tripped up by Henry Moore’s sprawling, 800-lb. King and Queen, a white-jacketed waiter crashed down in bubbly embarrassment. At least one person was served something besides refreshment: at the moment he least expected it, Artist Larry Rivers was handed a subpoena from the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, which claims he violated a contract to join monolithic Marlborough’s stable of 52 artists. For some reason, the beneficiaries of the party were neither painters nor sculptors, but rather the Musicians Emergency Fund. They were left far from broke by the baroque affair. Sales of tickets and catalogues for the opening night of the show, a tribute to the late dealer Curt Valentin, netted a tidy 12,000. This week recuperated New Yorkers could pay $1 and return for an unjostled look.