ACE Gallery was a spectacular white box whose monolithic walls and rays-from-heaven- like lighting lent import to any damn thing on the wall when it was in SoHo back in the day. And while the adjacent deli that sells tallboys remains on 6th Avenue, ACE has long moved to LA  where it became grander; occupying theme-park-scaled gallery space at two locations. We hit their Wilshire Avenue space the other night for the opening of opera designer Achim Freyer’s painting show
 LIGHT SHADOWS AND RING PROCESSIONS
. The large, painterly, layered works are all about finding locations in space, evoking the paintings of Giacommeti and the sculptor Mark DeSuvero. We were treated to a kraut-style art happening; a low tech procession of costumed performers led by the 76 year old Freyer, a student of Bertolt Brecht, in a giant eyeball mask wielding a big red paint brush, that might as well have been in 1980’s SoHo. The open bar nurtured Legman’s wistfulness and the whole was a sea change from the dull but menacing standoff we found ourselves in between cops and Laker celebrants pouring out of the gross sports bars  in Hollywood the other night, where at the intersection of Cahuenga and Selma we watched cops equipped with a sonic crowd control weapon, an LRAD mounted atop a cruiser.  Looking forward to a real riot to see that thing in action.