The exhibition is open Saturdays 12-5 or by appointment
One Top is open by invitation only

Consider One Top a response to a small project space, but also a seduction for solitude, an anti-social experiment, an outward-facing selfie. Dean Baldwin, an artist who wonders if he’s missing his collective, presents L.A. with an experience one part romance, one part existential drift.

Imagine walking into a restaurant to find yourself the only one there. You aren’t at the wrong place, and no one is missing. Instead, this is the ultimate VIP dinner invite, so elite as to not include a plus-one. Upon your invitation, you appear at the appointed hillside in Echo Park. No one will greet you. No one will fuss. There will be a single table with a single chair. You will notice a half bottle of white wine, already on ice. A handwritten menu provides you with the instructions you may need. Your table is set with individual items, their singularity refracting yours: perhaps a radish, a fish, a single square of chocolate. What will you refrain from discussing? Where will your eyes flit to, or become fixed? One Top marks the elevation - and essentializing – of a practice borne of human relations, baked in sensorial pleasure. Baldwin’s is the happy chaos of making a thing happen from the things at hand. A dinner for one may be the logical evolution of all his merrymaking: the quiet scan of our private elation.

The artist gratefully acknowledges the support of CALQ.

Images from Bryce Dwyer, Andrew Berardini, Farley Elliott, Sean MacAlister, and Merideth Hillbrand

Eater LA
Artforum (micro mention)