MATT AT BAT: Local art gallery operator and curator, Matt Strauss, who has become bi-coastal in the past couple years, had his first curated show at a NYC gallery open on Friday.

Although it was a frigid night, there were some ex-pat St. Louisans mingling among the Right Coasters at the opening at the Renwick Gallery, 45 Renwick Street in Soho.

Cole Root, director of St. Louis' Los Caminos gallery who moved to New York last year was at the opening, as was artist Erik Spehn, who also left the STL for NY over the past couple years, curator Marie Heilich and artist Megan Marrin. Notable New Yorker's in attendance included artists Tommy Hartung and Tony Matelli, author James Frey, and gallerists Michelle Maccarone, Lisa Cooley and Tyler Dobson.

Strauss said the artists whose work is in the exhibition are mostly high-level artists he's shown at his White Flag Projects gallery, 4568 Manchester Avenue. Among them: Matelli, who was recently in the Venice Biennale; Hartung, whose work is in White Flag's next show with Uri Aran, which is opening Thursday at 6 p.m. (one of Hartung's films was recently bought by the Museum of Modern Art); Joyce Pensato, who opened a major solo exhibition at the Frederich Petzel Gallery in Chelsea the night before the Renwick opening; and Cameron Jamie, who has been in the Whitney Biennial and the Venice Biennale.

"It's really just like there's a White Flag show in a good NYC gallery right now," Strauss said in an email.

The show at the Renwick Gallery will remain up through February 18.