Dealer Tony Shafrazi complained that there were "no art people" at the opening of the Serge Sorokko Gallery at 430 West Broadway on April 2. The three-story gallery with an aluminum staircase was the site of a party for the opening of a photography show in conjunction with the publication of The Last Party, Observer contributor Anthony Haden-Guest's book about Studio 54. The place was mobbed with more than 2,500 night-life revelers pulled together by publicist Nadine Johnson, who also represents the Gagosian Gallery and the Cheetah Club, where there was a dinner afterward. But the next day, Mr.Sorokko pointed out that a number of "art people" had dropped by the night before, including representatives of East 57th Street's Pace-Wildenstein gallery, who came by for a look at the new space.
The question of whether there are "art people" left in SoHo has been coming up more and more these days. The "art people" seem to have moved to West Chelsea, where new galleries are popping up, like $25 hookers, off 10th Avenue north of 20th Street. SoHo is said to have been taken over by what used to be referred to by the unkind as Eurotrash, those people with indeterminate foreign accents and no visible means of support who arrive from other neighborhoods in long white limousines and go to parties to celebrate books about nightclubs that closed 10 years ago. A little bit of that goes a long way, complain those who actually live in SoHo and who say that their streets are clogged much too often with long white limousines.
Mr. Sorokko, a native of Latvia who intends to show art by "important European artists," such as Pierre Soulage, Antoni Tápies and Allen Jones, said that he does not consider himself to be a part of the Eurotrash invasion of SoHo. "I think that if you look at where art is sold in cities all over the world, you will find that it is often mingled in with the night life and the fashion worlds," he said. "I consider myself to be very much an art people."