First Fridays at the MCA: Art, Absinthe, and Loneliness, Just in Time for Valentine’s Day
First Fridays at the MCA: Art, Absinthe, and Loneliness, Just in Time for Valentine’s Day by Theresa Rothschadl
If you’re looking for love in all the wrong places, and you’d like to continue that losing streak, you might want to try First Fridays at the MCA. The event is advertised as a singles night, the general idea being that the presence of great art will both filter out undesirables and provide a topic of discussion for those with social anxiety. On-site DJs and Wolfgang Puck hors d’oeuvres add to the draw. With Valentine’s Day in mind, I was looking forward to an evening filled with everything I like—good food, men, art and music…or at least being able to pretend sophistication as I sipped a merlot, declaiming about Sol LeWitt. Alas, none of the above was to be found at the MCA, with the half-exception of the wine, which, at $7 a glass (on top of the $16 admission fee) was out of my reach.
There was plenty of music to be had, if measured by volume. Early on, the playlist was composed of an unoriginal series of hipster-ish songs (MGMT, Phoenix, Modest Mouse, etc.). Then it degenerated into dance versions of the unoriginal hipster-ish playlist—then into pure dance music. I enjoy dance music, but strictly in context (say, while dancing). At the MCA it interfered with both the art appreciation and the chatting, which in turn interfered with First Fridays’ entire reason for being.
As for Wolfgang Puck appetizers, the food available would seem to indicate that Wolfgang Puck has a rather low opinion of twenty-somethings’ palates. The menu consisted of the following: the sort of salad you can get in a plastic bag at the Jewel (iceberg lettuce, purple cabbage, carrots), taquitos, cream cheese-filled jalapeno poppers, and the usual seasonal heart-shaped sugar cookies. These are all excellent foods—if you’re drunk at 2am. Placed next to an $8 martini, they gave the impression that the MCA had skimped. Appropriately, given the coming holiday, they also gave me heartburn.
Most adults, I think, are perfectly capable of attending a party with bad food and bad music while still exercising their social skills to good effect. What was frustrating about First Friday, however, was the utter lack of mingling. I had visualized a situation in which normal social rules would be broken—or at least bent—and strangers would strike up conversations with strangers. The event’s website, advertising “the world’s only iMac G5 digital dating bar” (in reality nowhere to be found) seemed to imply that the MCA would be orchestrating some sort of effort to bring people together. Instead, the scenario resembled pretty much every other club or very large party I’ve ever been to: everyone came with their own posse, glanced in the general direction of attractive strangers, then left with their own posse. The friends I was with put it in various ways: “There were a lot of couples,” said Esther. “There are a lot of attractive women here, but you couldn’t talk to them,” said Eddy. Graham commented that the gay men present weren’t really his crowd—“too unapproachable.” However any of us described the dynamic, the effect was still the same: sterile gazes were as far as anyone seemed to be getting—which, of course, is counter to the entire point of a singles’ night.
Hoping for more fertile territory, my friends and I fanned out in the galleries. Attendees, when asked why they had come, were clearly startled to be spoken to by anyone. They almost universally replied that they were “there for the art.” We may have achieved an unrepresentative sample of actual art-lovers, however. The galleries themselves were sparsely populated. The crowd, which must have numbered in the hundreds, was mainly packed in the corridor, apparently unwilling to leave the music, the food, and the alcohol in order to take a look at what was hanging on the walls of the museum.
To whom, one wonders, are First Fridays directed? To art lovers? Surely not. To foodies or music buffs? No and no. Could the MCA have been trying to play Cupid, working to unite the young and the cultured just in time for Valentine’s Day? Apparently, no. The answer may lie with Pernod, the company providing free samples of its absinthe to the crowd. One can only imagine that Pernod gleefully pounced on the opportunity to advertise their liquor, traditionally associated with bohemians and artists, at an art museum, and the people in attendance seemed happy to give it a try. Presumably, the MCA was equally happy to receive Pernod’s sponsorship. But unless you wish you consider the money you spend at a First Friday event to be a charitable donation, it may be more fun, and cheaper, for the young and single of Chicago to buy their own bottles of absinthe, invest in their own taquitos, and make their own art with friends. With a glue gun and some ribbon, you might even be able to make a nice Valentine.
