Deep house music blasted over the crowd from DJs. The audience was a sea of chic cocktail dresses and designer suits. A camera was set up solely to snap the pictures of narcissistic young things, posing for their five seconds of fame. There was even a troupe of pouting models in a traveling photo shoot.
No, it's not a club scene out of Ibiza (if that were the case, there would have been a lot more young, decadent Europeans). It was First Friday, the once-a-month after-hours party hosted by the Museum of Contemporary Art that happens (you guessed it) every first Friday of the month. The event has been running since 1996. Each month has a different theme. Last year there was a Seven Deadly Sins series (the theme of Pride marked their third annual Gay Pride First Friday). This month's theme was illumination. As part of the theme, there were glow-in-the-dark markers, which people could use to draw on each other.
The event also features an up-and-coming Chicago artist. This month it was Jenny Holzer with her exhibit "PROTECT PROJECT." Giant colored LED signs served as her canvas and continually scrolled short statements. Some of them were common myths; others were random slogans. My friend Zack, who joined me that night, spent at least 15 minutes captivated by one piece: "The art morphed into different colors. The text was long and formed patterns and took a long time for it to repeat again," he says. "It made me wonder whether the artist expected the audience to be sitting there for 15 minutes or have it different every time [someone] came in. The average person was in there for like three minutes."
It had been a while since Zack had visited the museum and the event was a cool way to bring him back. However, more people seemed in to the hors d'oeuvres than the art, he says. "It seems to me First Fridays was originally a good idea but now people just go there to be seen." Beach even made the mistake of assuming people were listening to the DJ when in fact, "they were just in a line for the bar. They totally should have moved the DJ into the art room - then it really would have been a party."
The event seems predisposed for a singles night. The Museum's Web site calls it "Happy Hour with a new meaning", and they have the world's only iMac G5 digital dating bar. Here, you can take a quiz and the computer will assign you a color. You can then wear a sticker of the same color and lounge around the chicken wings in hopes of finding a compatible match.
For Medill senior Maggie Li, the event felt like "one big overrated frat party masked by the supposed sophistication of a cultured event at a modern art museum. That was really annoying, especially with some scantily-clad girls and inebriated men circling about as if they were at a meat market." It was Li's first time at the event and despite the "meat market" feel, she enjoyed it. "I liked the little quads of products and activities they had," she said. "I think it's the interactiveness with artistic things that make the MCA an interesting social event."
Weinberg senior Minh Thai interned with the museum during the summer months and was volunteering at the event. "First Fridays really is what you make of it, and though some people attend for purely social reasons, I really do believe most people come, in large part, to see the exhibitions," Thai says. "There is no shortage of hip clubs and bars, so if someone's coming to First Fridays then there is something else that's drawing them in."
Thai said the crowd can vary from artsy hipsters to I-Bankers, the latter seemingly in full force that night. "In terms of age, it really runs the gamut from those aged 21 to in their 60s," she says. "The majority tend to be in their 20s and 30s, though."
For Medill senior Leona Liu, the event was a fun way to "take advantage of the proximity to the city. Sometimes I feel like Northwestern students are lazy and only hang out in Evanston." It was Liu's first time as well and for her, there will definitely be a repeat trip. "It was a fun event to kick off your evening with your friends," she says. "I expected more attendees to be viewing the art galleries but given that more people were interested in mingling, there was little of that. There was a really eclectic, diverse mix of people which made the event a lot of fun and very different from your usual Northwestern joints."
A word of advice: arrive early. By about 7 p.m. the museum was packed. It averages about 1,500 people per event Chaz Olajide, manager of external marketing says. Yet it was relatively easy to stroll through each exhibit and be left alone for quiet contemplation, save for when you lean in too close to an exhibit like I did and museum security yells at you.
Tickets are $15, $10 in advance and include museum admission and complimentary hors d'oeuvres. The event runs from 6-10 p.m. with a cash bar until 9:30 p.m. Guests must be 21+.
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