Public Eye

Saturday night Santa Monica, in homage to the Nuite Blanche of Paris, put on its own all-night art party, Glow.

From dusk to dawn, on the palisades, on the beach, on the pier, there was indeed art -- most of it lighted, some of it even glowing.

We went out from about midnight until about 2 in the morning -- Julia, Phoebe and I, joined by Julia's friend Aria and our French exchange student Lisa. Not coming back to Pasadena until 3 in the morning made for a rather later than usual Saturday night even for the teenage girls.

Did it work? That's complicated. The huge turnout showed how hungry Southern Californians are for a shared art experience, a kind of Burning Man closer to home. I saw no crowd estimates, nor did I call the Santa Monica police for one -- but there were likely 100,000 people there. Bumper to bumper on the 10 approaching PCH for a mile at 11:30 at night. At 1:30 in the morning, the Santa Monica Pier was so crowded over its entire length that you could barely walk. So as far as turnout goes, Glow rocked.

Lots of people, good -- not enough art, bad. There was simply a dearth of stuff to look at. You wouldn't know it from the online program -- reading it, you would think there was art everywhere.

Certainly, there was art. Two things that worked were Primal Source, lights projected on fountain, above, an interactive piece by Usman Haque apparently influenced by passing conversations, and Pasadena artist Peter Tolkin's Dunnage Ball, shown below, a really fun installation made of 30 dunnage bags -- those big inflatable pillows used to stabilize cargo. They were great, and drew thousands of people onto the beach.

The grunion, which might have made an appearance, gave it a miss. Too many people on their sand.

Lessons learned, let's Glow again, like we did last summer.