A museum with a swinging night life

APPARENTLY there are many Angelenos who prefer to view art in the dark.

And these are people who like art. Officials of downtown’s Museum of Contemporary Art report that the museum’s Saturday-night, after-dark program, Night Vision -- offering live music, films, spoken-word events, dancing, art-making, access to a 16-foot tended bar and late-hour food service at the Patinette Cafe -- has been drawing a large and diverse crowd, ranging in age from 21 to 60 and with, in the words of one museum spokeswoman, its own “fresh and funky/sexy” style.

The 12-week program, free with museum admission, began July 23, concurrently with the museum’s ongoing retrospective of the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat that closes Oct. 10.

Next Saturday’s edition will feature DJs Michael Stock and Benjamin White of Part Time Punks, a reading by Kevin Young from the hip-hop opera “To Repel Ghosts” (inspired by the life and work of Basquiat) and L.A.-based musicians Romy and the Bone Ladder.

But museum director Jeremy Strick says he is gratified that the crowd seems interested in more than the atmosphere.

“I think one of the things that’s gratifying about this is that the principal attraction is the art, the exhibition,” he says.

The attendees also, Strick adds, like to come out at night. “As I’ve been in the galleries, I consistently overhear comments: ‘Isn’t it wonderful to be at a museum at this time? I wish the museums were always open [at night].’ I think it has to do with the way people live now. For me, the larger message is that we’ve learned this is a time when people want to visit the museum and that making the museum available at a different time in a different way fulfills a need and desire in our community.”