“Diana’s a party girl,” said Bobby, upon the revelation that she’d been out until 2 a.m. “She’s a total socialite.”
Although chatty–especially on the topic of how he was “always broke”–Bobby, a short, slim 22-year-old artist sporting a light scruff, seemed at first indifferent to the duties of entourage membership. But when The Observer purchased his entourage a bottle of Champagne, it was Bobby who eagerly volunteered to carry the bottle around the fair.
Alejandro was a quiet fellow and paid a lot of attention to whatever was going on on his phone. A genial smoking companion, he told The Observer he’d recently started a zine about ecology. “It’s the Playboy of ecology,” he said.
Diana explained various trends in contemporary art to The Observer with care: Use of Photoshop was no longer taboo; spongy foam sculptures were kind of a 2002 thing, but they were still big in art schools; certain photographers were in the business of producing “a photo-photo-photo kind of photo”; the social realism of, say, Nan Goldin “had its use.” She made recommendations for his collection, and The Observer noted the artists’ names in his notebook, promising to Google them when he got home. It wasn’t his style to make purchases on the spot. “I need to study,” he said.
When Diana encountered an acquaintance, she introduced The Observer as a classical scholar with discernible pride of association. Or at least she was good at trying to make a lonely scholar feel better about himself.
On the way from a booth with a large John Currin canvas to the upstairs Modernism wing, the entourage, now depleted of Champagne, acquired two new members, friends of the hired trio from Berlin.
“I love Modernism,” said Alejandro.
Modernism, however, would be the end of the line. Diana invited The Observer to an opening afterward at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise downtown, but, she reminded him, “the social contract of Entourage expires when we leave this building.”
The Observer offered to pay for a cab. On the way downtown, he revealed his true identity.
“Were you lying about everything?” asked Bobby. “Are you really from Boston?”
“Only the Xenophon thing was a lie. I’m really from Boston.”
“Cool. At the end of all this, the whole Entourage group is going to get our picture in The New York Times’ style magazine. I think we could really make it into a business. Entourages to go anywhere.”
“I don’t think it will go on,” said Diana, “after this weekend.”
At the opening, where guests were eating a roasted pig, The Observer thanked his entourage and bid them goodbye. He grabbed a beer, stood in the doorway and lit a cigarette. It was good to be alone.
clorentzen@observer.com
