Nora Griffin Soft Machine oil on canvas 2008

Amy Sillman oil on canvas 2008

Matt Connors The Star (January) oil on canvas 2008

After a month's run the party is over and by now the walls of the white box must have been cleared, but when Barry and I arrived on the last day of "Party At Phong's House" at Galeria Janet Kurnatowski there was still plenty of fun to go around.

The times (and at times my own peevish taste for serious drama) may demand more dour or even doleful work than the dozens of beautiful mostly-abstract works created by almost as many living artists (including one elephant) which the painter Chris Martin had assembled for this show, but let those times wait, and right now I think we all need a little revel. Martin ended his short curatorial statement: "The reason for curating this show was to have a party afterwards at Phong's house."

I thought both the idea and its realization were unaffected and delightful, a perfect match for another perfect fall afternoon, and an excellent elixir for sweeping away gloomy thoughts about our socialist capitalist end of days. I've included a tiny sampler of images from the exhibition here. The information below each is all that was printed on the checklist.

I don't think I have a complete list of artists, but these are those names the gallery had furnished for the ArtCal listing, to which I've added some more which I happened to record on Sunday with my camera:

Liv Aandrud, Keltie Ferris, Margrit Lewczuk, Isabelle Acheson, Alison Fox, Craig Olson, Peter Acheson, Peter Gallo, Joyce Pensato, Chick Bianchi, Tamara Gonzales, Nathlie Provosty, Palma Blank-Rosenblum, Ron Gorchov, Tal R, Phong Bui, Nora Griffin, Alexandra Shurrer, Matt Connors, EJ Hauser, Amy Sillman, Dave Cutrone, Bill Jensen, Elephant Sri-Siam, Thornton Dial, Ben La Rocco, Sharon Horvath, Malado Baldwin, Bill Jensen, John Blank, James Biederman, and others . . .