Welcome back to our ongoing as-it-happens coverage of Gallery Girls, the Bravo reality show that aims to follow the hustle and bustle lives of the women who sit behind desks at galleries. Two fresh bits of news today: a confirmed gallery and a possible name change.
If you’ve just joined us, we’ve been following the show as it was picked up with the new working title Paint the Town, and recently investigated a tip that the show would feature, as one of its galleries, End of Century, a clothing and design boutique-cum-gallery just around the corner from the Sunshine Landmark Cinema, at 237 Eldridge.
Now, two bits of news: the show will indeed feature End of Century! Also, it seems the name may have been changed back to Gallery Girls. We learned all this at a Friday night opening party at the store that featured the work of artist Lauren Luloff, a performance by the band Open Ocean, and a Bravo camera crew of some six or seven people.
The first hint that we’d hit the jackpot came right at the corner of Eldridge and East Houston, where a double date comprised of two men in tight T-shirts and two women in heeled boots were having a casual “what should we do tonight?” conversation in front of a cameraman, boom mike operator and lighting guy. One of the women wore a furry vest.
A bearded man in a windbreaker leaned near a producer standing off to the side and asked in a whisper what all of this was about. A documentary about the art world, the producer explained, about “galleries and such.”
“Galleries and such?” the man responded. “The art world? Anything else before I walk away from this not knowing much?” He gestured at the attractive quartet at the crossroads. “Are those people supposed to be art world people?”
“They’re new to the art world,” the producer said.
“They certainly are,” said the windbreakered man. He would later be seen at the the gallery, berating the women behind the drinks table because they didn’t have anything non-alcoholic for those celebrating Yom Kippur.
A large sign on the front window of the gallery informed entrants that by stepping into the space they consented to appear on a show called Gallery Girls. The store has a surprising amount of wall-space thanks to a protrusion that forms an entryway—Ms. Luloff’s fabric pieces didn’t feel cramped, even though two sat behind the band’s drum set. There’s a jewelry case, and a clothing rack with a little shelf above it that held a perfume called “Blood/Sweat/Tears.” Many people inside were caked with TV makeup, and were fiendishly attractive.
Ms. Luloff said she’d met the three girls who run the gallery, Chantal Chadwick, Lara Hodulick and Claudia Martinez Reardon, through a friend, and said she’d shown at the space earlier when it was home to the Sunday, LES gallery.
“It stressed me out a little bit,” Ms. Luloff said outside, of the reality crew. “Because I’m not really used to that world at all, but they’re really nice. They did film a little bit of installation, and it was fine. They were very noninvasive.”
The initial pitch said the show would follow six gallerinas, but we’re not sure if the End of Century triumvirate counts as one or three. Chatter at the party implied that the show’s producers have isolated the individual galleries from any others involved in the show, so nobody at the party had any clue as to what the other galleries might be. So we’re on the lookout for others! All tips to dduray@observer.com, please.
Correction 10/12,
