Three weeks ago, SuttonBeresCuller walked into a huge plywood box, a box that took up almost the entirety of the very large front room at Scott Lawrimore’s new art space Lawrimore Project, and closed the door. They promised to open the box again in three weeks, revealing a new work of some kind.

The walls of the box came down last night at 7 pm, or better yet opened up, flower petal-like, to reveal… well, uh, a Chinese restaurant. My gosh, they’ve air lifted a Chinese restaurant into an art gallery, I thought when I got there—the detail is pretty amazing. Among the details: glistening chickens on hooks in the window; street lights; a sidewalk bike rack thing; a neon OPEN sign; a menu in a flourescent-lit box; vents breathing kitchen steam; garbage; graffiti; a roof with weathered stone shingles; and a sign on the top of the roof, lighted from within, that reads:

THREE DRAGON RESTAURANT
Dine-In 206-501-1231 Take-Out

They made that sign—the phone number apparently calls Scott Lawrimore’s cell phone—as well as all the walls (painted, dirtied up with mud). Inside the restaurtant were several tables, one messy with the remains of a meal and another where two diners, actors, were eating an elaborate meal. And having a date. They were really good—impervious to all distractions, and you can bet people tried to distract them—and they were actually on a blind date. At least one of them was from out of town. I must report that the date seemed to be going well. John Sutton agreed, and said, “If they end up having babies, it’s a masterpiece.”