Auction: Art for the People but by the Stars

The Scene: Three hundred or so people ambling around in the Daniel Saxon Gallery on a hot November Saturday night. The artworks lining the walls--by obscure artists as well as art stars such as Laddie John Dill, Leon Golub, the late Carlos Almaraz and D. J. Hall--were auctioned off Saturday for Carecen, the Central American Refugee Center, a grass-roots nonprofit organization that provides legal and social services for about half a million refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala in L. A.

Who Was There: Artists galore, including Gronk, Frank Romero (chairman of the event), Guillermo Bert, Jorge Sicre, Charles Dickson, Leo Limon, Luis Serrano, John Valadez. Also, L. A. fashion designer Dennis Goldsmith, actors Elizabeth Montgomery and Robert Foxworth, Barry Krost, Carecen director Madeline Janis, and plenty of serious collectors who, as they say in the auction trade, weren’t sitting on their hands.

The Buzz: The surge of refugees in L. A. who will be able to register for temporary protective status starting in January (the bill is scheduled to be signed by President Bush soon); the outcome of Saturday’s presidential election in Guatemala; artist-to-artist talk (“What kind of truck are you driving now?”), Darryl Strawberry, getting home by 10 to find out who killed Laura Palmer.

Quoted: “This isn’t a conceptual crowd,” dealer Robert Berman, acting as auctioneer, said when Erica Rothenberg’s mixed-media “Flag-Burning Kit” failed to sell for its $1,200 estimated value. (It went for $850.)

Chow: Hors d’oeuvres such as cheese, salami, chips, salsa, spinach dip, veggies, all washed down with Bohemia beer and white and red wines.

Dress Code: Everything from the urban ranchero look (cowboy boots, jeans, blanket vests, silver jewelry) to the urban club look (black everything).

Triumph: Keeping the evening simple. Few event organizers realize that an auction is an event in itself and usually shouldn’t be attempted during lavish sit-down dinners with an hour of entertainment to sit through when nobody has the patience for it.