"It Ain't a Rock Show, That's for Sure"

"I didn't know she was an artist," said one gallery hopper last night at Courtney Love's debut exhibition, entitled And She's Not Even Pretty, at Fred Torres Collaborations in Chelsea. Gazing at one of the drawings, featuring a doll-like woman resembling Love with the phrase "I'm a celebrity, get me out of here" scribbled across it in red, he added, "But if I were to envision what her art would look like, it would look exactly like this. Like, exactly this, #whitegirlrockerproblems."

The white girl rocker in question—whose art, like her music, is a compelling mash-up of confrontation and vulnerability—made her entrance more than an hour after the likes of Julian Schnabel, Steven Klein, and Olivier Theyskens began filtering into the small studio space. "What I am is nervous. I can't hide behind my guitar in here," Love told Style.com as she lit up a cigarette. "It ain't a rock show, that's for sure. I only went to San Francisco Art Institute for two years, mainly so I could get my allowance. Basically, I just wanted to be a rock star and a movie star. I wanted to either go to Miss Porter's to be a lady, or Chatham Hall, or Interlochen, because Tatum O'Neal won an Oscar when I was two and I wanted one too."

On how the exhibition came about, Love said, "I have two Karen Kilimnik pieces, and one day I was looking at them and I was like, 'I draw better than Kilimnik.' " Apparently, a few art collectors agree; some of the pieces in the exhibition (there are over 45 works on paper on display) have already been sold. But not the white wedding dress made for her by John Galliano, which she marked up in red lipstick with words we can't reprint—that one isn't going anywhere: "They all went nuts on it yesterday and Frank got an offer, but I said I'm not selling it. The point is, I was a little drunk and I just wanted to deface it and then I had this Etsy chick in Ohio embroider over it. Etsy chicks in Ohio, I'm telling you!"