February 3, 2010 - Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Last night’s opening at ACE Gallery in Beverly Hills was proof there is an Art World, as distinct from reality as that dimension we call the Twilight Zone. No recession specials here among the municipal scaled bronze works. And you’d never know the pawn shop on Wilshire was doing record business if you just touched down for the evening, enveloped as we were by an acre of designer duds and flowing Absolute, to see the “Black Totem” sculptures of Herb Alpert. Yes, Tijuana Brass Herb Alpert; the trumpeter, composer, arranger, songwriter, record producer, philanthropist, and vocalist is also a painter and sculptor. His dozen towering, darkly patinated bronze works arrayed across the massive gallery space are well worth seeing without the crowd.