Party First?

At Bravo (which is pretty large abandoned 3 bedroom apartment in a condemmed building in the notoriously sketchy Katendrecht neighborhood of Rotterdam) one night, while Fifi Hengsten played in the living room and Jan made cocktails in the shower, the kitchen was made into an italian pizzaria complete with fake mustaches, (just as ? more? importantly) the pizza was excellent and the venue made some money off hungry art fans to help pay for future events.

There's something about some of the art events that i've seen and heard of here in rotterdam that I really like and i'm trying to put my finger on. I'm going to be writing about this some more in the future but i wanted to start something here in case any of our devoted readers :) wanted to comment and suggest paralells or further thoughts. Ok, here's an attempt to say what i'm talking about- the events, and in some cases the spaces are conceptual art projects in their own right, but in a really relaxed way that emphasizes fun, comfort, and a good social atmosphere above their "artiness". Its like its first and formost a party that is meant to be fun and it has some deeper intelectual meaning its because the people who are planning it and the people who are showing up just really enjoy thinking deeply. My fursuit portrait paint-off was an example of this. Was the food this good at Fluxus events? Was the beer as cheap, and were outsiders welcomed so warmly? Some of the crowd behind De Player, a club run by DSPS here in rotterdam, (and me too) are intersted in events that are both art events and other kinds of things at the same time, and make sense as both, ideally for people coming from several frames of reference at once too. HERE is a video of some kind of performance at De Player- this isn't really an example of what i'm talking about i just thought it looked interesting- and there's a gallery in Hamburg that i met in Cologne called Helium Cowboy that seems to be up to something similar- their parties look really fun-- i can't tell if they are as warm as the stuff that DSPS is doing. Does anyone know what i'm talking about?