Well, I call it an exhibit in quotes as there were barely any photos on the walls and the models, Dj's, drink servers and bouncer really had nothing to do with Mars Bar in the slightest. The photos of the model posing by the window and jukebox are utterly ridiculous as is their "look book" on their website. It was packed to the brim with hipsters and models and people shopping for clothes. Now, while everyone there was nice to me and I got complimented on the clothes I was wearing..I have never felt more out of place and I took a bunch of cell pics and two videos and left when it wound down after 8. I knew it would be depressing to see photos of my favorite bar hung up at a place that sells $200 t-shirts..I really did not expect it to be so...utterly awful. It was just an excuse for people to shmooze and the place to make some sales. Note the prices on the photos up for sale. I doubt the subjects will see a penny of it. Blue and Cream are free to open up a fancy clothing store on the Bowery of course..however Mars Bar should not be used to get them business..the quaint little divey bar down the block that they saw fit to use to their advantage when it closed. Anyway, at least they let me in. I did try to sneak into the Varavatos store later for some other opening and got kicked out. Heh. here are like dozens of pics and two videos..enjoy..if you can! I posted one pic of me looking scared. I WAS SCARED!
If this isn't the very definition of irony I'm not sure what is. Are they oblivious to the fact that because of shops LIKE THEIRS Mars Bar is no longer with us? BLUE AND CREAM are part of the problem if not THE problem. How long do we have until 'Real Housewives of The Bowery' starts filming?
ReplyDeleteOn the plus side it's nice to see old women wearing fur again!
Haha! It was beyond ironic. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry so i left and got drunk. DID NOT ERASE THE MEMORIES.
ReplyDeleteim in awe that she took photos of other peoples art and is selling them - esp for so much. it makes me want to go in and take photos of her photos of other people's art and sell them. hell!- i should do that at the MET: oh wait, the gift shop already does that. going back to a grade school attitude, id like to tell her to "eat a bag of dicks."
ReplyDeletealso, too bad ray doing what does is worth $2500 (or whatever-too lazy to look) but hes not going to see any of that. sad.
the whole spectacle reminds me of why i enforced that "no photography allowed" rule.
if i wasnt busy with work, i might sit outside blue & cream with my own photos of mars. $20 each. theres a dress in blue & cream that i like - only $1300 or something. maybe ill be able to get it!
ReplyDeleteThank you for venturing into the maw of the beast...depressing is right. People seem to be more interested in themselves than the 'art' on display. I don't know what to say, really, but this is just sad.
ReplyDeleteNice. At least you had more balls than me. As soon as I saw the doorman and the Hamptonites people inside and going in the store, I had a panic attack and just turned around.
ReplyDeleteP.S. "It was just an excuse for people to shmooze...", just like the BMW Guggenheim lab...
ReplyDeletei couldn't make it through the videos! One thing i couldn't stop noticing is the amount of highlighted long honey blonde hair...
ReplyDeleteFor someone who came here expecting the worst, I gotta say they achieved the impossible - it is actually even worse.
ReplyDeleteYep, a tribute to Mars Bar should be held velvet ropes style behind a bodyguard. And once you step inside, it's as if every poison that has been ingested by NYC since hypergentrification began was just vomited out in blue and cream chunks all over that place. A crowd of people all trying their hardest to look like they aren't trying is always a 100% sure fire sign of a mockery on display.
All that's missing is a remote control fruit fly and the Chipmunks singing Chinese Rocks.
we're living in a dystopia. too awful to dream up, so it must be real. thanks for getting in there and chronicling this, as painful as it was.
ReplyDeleteThe Mars Bar was a truly awful place...I mean, it was a shit hole of the highest (lowest) order. The people I encountered on my few visits over the years were never friendly, the drinks tasted like poison and the bathroom was truly disgusting.
ReplyDeleteTHAT SAID. It had character. It was a home to the gutter punks, the degenerates and other misfits. It was one of those places that makes New York what it is, or increasingly what it was.
I second all the posts that are repelled by the sheer ironic horribleness of this "show" being held at a store like this.
I think going to this really made it sink in for me that Mars is gone forever. It's been almost a year and i drink elsewhere and i miss the hell out of it but in the back of my head I thought it may reopen somewhere else and be sort of the same. I just was repulsed and sort of left there feeling sad and then walked by the old CBGB's which was even worse with two limos parked out front and I felt even worse. I think I regret going at all now. Way too much honey blonde hair has made me depressed.
ReplyDeleteThis kind of reminds me of when I first went to the various galleries in SoHo in the late '70's...I'll admit, I was kind of a rube, sure, and people were sort of polite, but there was this snobbery that pervaded...and the art seemed like poorly-conceived, overly-justified, first-year art students' projects, done at the last minute. The people all behaved as if they knew what art was (and I didn't) and were big-time name droppers. They talked about summering in the Hamptons, how gorgeous someone's diamond ring was, etc. I remember leaving NYC thinking that art was surely dead; at least in a moribund state.
ReplyDeleteP.S.-I like your purse. It kind of seems like it would be something that could be comfortably cuddled, in a pinch, like a small dog (officially, my public position is that I don't like small dogs; but, if truth be told, I love all dogs, and all of them win me over very quickly) or something. Also, my eyes don't see very clearly anymore, but it looks as if your phone is dressed up to look like an old cassette tape. I wondered if this is the case and not just another one of my imaginary truths...I remember you got mugged over one of your phones once.
You alll make me sick and i want to.kill you all..nuke york
ReplyDeleteThis is pretty much what the scene is like in the EV, LES, and the Bowery, not just the new boutiques and bars, even with the old mainstay such as Phebe's, St. Dymphna's, Swift's Hibernian. R.I.P. the Bowery.
ReplyDeleteHi how are you?
ReplyDeleteI was looking through your blog, and I found it interesting, and inspiring to me, so I thought why not post a comment.
I have blogs also obviously, and would like to invite you to become my blog friend.
I mostly post about the California experience through the perspective of personal writings, and my art.
Maybe you can become my friend, and follow, and I can also follow you, if that is okay.
Well I hope to hear from you soon… :)
Jesse Noe Mendez
This "tribute" to Mars bar is what Paris Hilton is to modesty. Revolting!
ReplyDeleteFakery!
ReplyDelete