Yeah, as a 27-year resident of LA, I have no particular illusions
about the LAPD, but this seems waaaaay out of character for
them.
If they wanted to crack down on in-your-face corporate-bashing art
that appropriates trademarks for purposes of parody, they'd have to
assemble a special task force. It's not like it's a rare form.
I do note that the only local coverage I can find is a couple of
LA-area blogs that repeat the same vague, anonymous, "I wasn't
there but someone said..." account, along with a pointer to the
gallery's page.
Several commenters on those blogs have mentioned being at the show,
but seemed unaware of any problem. One mentioned seeing several
police cars, but assumed it was just the LAPD enforcing a fire
marshall's closure order due to overcrowding - a likely
possibility, given the density of the crowd in the photos.
The LAPD does take fire-safety rules in converted downtown
warehouse spaces quite seriously.
If you're curious about the LAPD's version, you could always write
to them at questions@lapdonline.org - I've found them to be fairly
responsive in the past.
But I have to say the whole thing sound about six different kinds
of unlikely to me.
My first bet would be the gallery owner or artist trying to gin up
publicity for a "controversial" art opening (which, from the looks
of it, is far from genuinely controversial), and my second bet
would be a crowd-control/fire-safety closure that was somehow
misunderstood by the gallery owner.
But I would be curious to see what the LAPD says.
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