Daniel Driensky, Daniel Perez, Pablo Herrera, and Adrian Solis from left to right / Photo courtesy of Daniel Driensky
Pulsing blue disco lights frame the entryway. A few wisps of smoke spill off the patio, the cigarettes responsible held lazily between manicured fingertips oh-so-coolly resting on the iron railing.
“My name might be on the list, or at least, um, I think so, anyway…”
The bouncer gives me a sweet, pitying look as he wraps a wristband around my arm. Suit-and-tie combos pepper the patio. They seem to be chatting about Very Important Topics, since they’re all speaking at a subdued decibel level that I – being unaccustomed to the highfalutin way of doing things – don’t seem to register. The suits-and-ties gather most densely in the far corner, huddled around who-knows-what. I beeline for the door and make my way into Circuit 12 Contemporary.
A hot-pink, blue, and purple glow super-saturates the modern art gallery with cotton-candy color. Frank Sinatra, standing 12 feet tall just to the right of the bar, is belting out his greatest hits to an empty dance floor and to the few couples who have nestled into the low-slung, white leather couches along the sides of the room. Adjacent to the dance floor and behind the bar, two more large projections cycle through a selection of fine art photographs – primarily those of Daniel Driensky.
***
It had been a long day. Driensky was stuck spending his evening photographing another Dallas high society event – an artist’s gotta pay the bills somehow – and just wanted to wrap up and get out of there. His friends Adrian Solis, Daniel Perez, and Pablo Herrera, had already arrived at the Gypsy Tea Room and started the party without him. At the time, in January 2012, Driensky thought nothing of heading straight to the dive-y Deep Ellum venue in black tie. A few drinks into the evening, however, the crew began to notice the way Driensky’s dapper dress grabbed attention and brought smiles to those looking on.
“Hey, why don’t we just suit up once a month and go out and dance?”
And Caviar Club was born.
***
Dustin Orlando is obscured behind the gently bobbing heads of the suit-and-tie corner crowd. Edging closer to the action, I realize that those gathered are there to ogle as the other party guests throw their financial weight around the poker table. Bets are being placed with bravado – $1 million, $3 million all-in! Orlando quietly hovers near the dealer and watches the toy money change hands.
Orlando and his wife Gina first opened the Circuit 12 Contemporary in Dallas’s Design District in March 2012. Tonight, theyare celebrating a year of success with an event called “Sinatra.” The couple originally met and began dating in Miami, where the art scene was more the start-at-10 o’clock-and-party-’til-3:00a.m. variety. One of Circuit 12’s major goals since the start has been to break the mold of what galleries and gallery openings should be in Dallas.
“The art scene here is a regionally driven, conservative market,” Gina says, “which is basically the exact opposite of what we do: eclectic, edgy, eccentric art for the Dallas scene.”
Pairing with Caviar Club to promote the event is equal parts reciprocity – Driensky has been supportive of Circuit 12 from the get go – and brilliant PR move.
“We wanted to pair up with someone who had the same aesthetic as us,” Gina says.
***
“If you spot a group of some well-dressed dudes, maybe on the more eccentric side, you’ll know.”
Adrian Solis comes bounding across the room towards me in a slick gray blazer, white button-down, and pale yellow bowtie. A small black and white pin imprinted with a bowtie and “CC” insignia is gently placed in my hand before we finish our hellos. Solis, a digital artist, leads me around the gallery and points out the crew: there’s Driensky, who does a lot of photography; and Pablo, who’s a videographer, but he also acts, too; and Perez, he’ll get here later, he does a lot of graphic design and paintings, you’ll recognize his moustache.
These four are the core of Caviar Club. Though they’ve all known one another through different people over the course of a decade, it wasn’t until they started hanging out as a group, talking about music, life, and art, that they noticed certain chemistry. A love of fashion and a penchant for all things artistic formed their common ground, but a touch of goofy goodness cemented them together.
“We’re all gentlemen. We do gentlemanly things. We treat ladies with respect. And we all feel like that’s part of our personality,” Solis says.
As for their accidental notoriety and social power, well, they’re figuring it out.
A wildly successful gallery at the Fairmont Hotel in December 2012 featured work of three Caviar Club artists and was followed by a New Year’s Eve bash at Ku De Ta co-hosted by Caviar Club. Word got out – people who were in the know knew about the artist collective gallivanting about town in trim threads. Then, folks like Dustin and Gina Orlando started wanting to use that power to promote their events. All of the sudden, Caviar Club had to take itself a bit more seriously.
***
“It’s pronounced ‘cah-vee-aahh,'” Driensky says, adding an extra dose of uppity nasal inflection and waving his hand around limply.
Five thin, put-together female party goers tap Solis on the shoulder and ask him to ask Herrera, who has an HD camera mounted on his shoulder as we chat, if he will photograph them.
“It’s, uh, not a still camera, it’s video,” Herrera says.
Solis reports back: they want to know if Herrera will take footage of them, from afar, laughing and having a good time. Herrera rolls his eyes playfully then throws on a smile as he steps back to oblige.
As he pulls out for a wide angle, the suits-and-ties are still mulling about the patio. It’s almost midnight and Solis has run out of Caviar Club buttons. A quick team meeting and it’s decided: the Caviar Club rolls out at midnight.
After all, when the clock strikes twelve, their bowties just might turn into, well, regular ties.
