Commencement

A section of the gallery had been lit and there, opulence did not have its place in the venue or the furnishings, but in the infusion of opinion, weathered by the canon or enriched by novelty. Not to mention the clothing of those in attendance, the cars they deposited at the valet.

At the Bette Porter Gallery, thirst had its place in the psyche; people quenched it in the deliberation of beauty, the stillness of photographs made mobile by the minds that saw them. Seeing became watching and watching beckoned experience to intervene. Experiences of desire, anger, tranquility, awareness, divergence

Daylight here, had an ethereal feel because it was stark, artificial, and oh so very immaculate. As planned, the gallery glowed in its fittings of light -white, such that it emphasized the deviancy contained in the exhibitions, the brilliant eye of the photographer immersed in dangerous themes and those that goaded one into an uncomfortable space. Opposition came from the artwork and the space hummed with their tension.

The world of art had a way of being cruel and yet at once, fulfilling. Cruel in that it did not spare what was unspoken and fulfilling, because truth, however relative, waited at every picture hung.

Bette greeted proverbial Truth at one display, scoffed at It in another, smiled at It when It tapped her amusement, stood uncomfortable -but for a moment only. She stopped to converse with the people who came by the same route, some of them needling opinion out of her. Truth fell from her mouth in rivulets, sometimes coated, sometimes sharp. Her smile was a spectacle on her face, in memory of revelation and on a more practical note, to please her guests.

She got affirmation on the gallerys superior elegance and her own ability to invite sophistication through her gallery doors soon enough. Not that she was apprehensive at all.

Oh, it echoes the museum in New York. Sensational work here, Bette. All that white -the pictures are practically leaping! Marcel Delaney told her, the Englishwoman posed in elegant red with a champagne flute hanging daintily on her fingertips.

Thank you. Imitation is the best form of flattery, Bette said, kissing her cheek in greeting as Marcel approached her and very familiarly put a hand on her shoulder. How has New York been?