Start with institutional taxonomy: given artist as species, the genera are Quint, Seminal Projects, Scott White, R.B. Stevenson, UCSD, and the extinct Zapf. This family tree covers the vast majority of invitees (and is perhaps a good first-cut solution to equation 1 above).

[Side note: it’s good to see social progress ongoing in the age of post-multiculturalism, as the show discriminates neither on the basis of race, creed, or pulse. RIP Italo and Manny, may your art be ever restless. End of side note.]

On to survival: besides the usual snagging of real estate in the coveted front room, a number of ingenious adaptive strategies were on display:

• Roman de Salvo and Michael James Armstrong secured unique and visually distinctive niches in an otherwise monotone ecosystem of wall-oriented work: Roman swinging from the rafters, Michael lodged in the entry to the back room, which scored him the architectural perks accruing from intelligent siting.
  
• Perry Vasquez and Adam Belt sacrificed the opportunity to show new work (the conventional move for an art show) in favor of recycling signature images that have received maximal airtime in other venues real and media (a shrewd move in an event devoted to niche reinforcement and network extension).
  
• Brian Dick took the characteristically hilarious direct approach (a kind of artworld diamond cutter sutra) of entering one of his headshot works — what better way to connect with the other five hundred people in the room than to show photos of yourself? Brilliant, except for the complicating factor that the room was so crowded no one could see the art.
  
• Louis Hock deftly sidestepped his forty-nine close neighbors by deploying Farber’s third space to remake a world of his own. Infinite vistas of Monument Valley are disrupted by what first appear to be animated inverse Irwin filters, but then gradually evolve into carefully calibrated erasures of classic Hollywood westerns. I think I saw a scene from The Searchers. Only work in the show I got lost in.
  
• Quint was not above a bit of adaptive strategizing itself, clearing out the parking lot for people room, and hiring a band to compensate for the compromised sightlines.
  

And finally, the art:

• David Adey bravely took the risk of using a networking event to stretch his recent strong body of pincushion work from magazine beauties to a Shepard Fairey-ed Obama. In concept it should have worked, but the Fairey palette zapped the push in the push-pull.
  
• Barry Bell needs to check out K.V. Tomney’s work, which achieves the same perceptual effect with breathtakingly superior material economy.
  
• Tom Driscoll used protective coloration to branch off MCASD’s David Hammons innertube (Hammons being a worthy model for anybody).
  
• I like Kim MacConnel’s recent work, but am starting to wonder if it works better in units of shows than in single works (but then I remember this is not an art show).
  
• To the other masters in the room (who know who they are): your work honored itself and you.
  

See you all in 2033.