Art isn't always my thing. I've, of course, been to the US National Gallery and stood in awe of the Rembrandts, Rapheals, and Monets. I've visited the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, the National Gallery in London, and even the Louvre. Though the pieces are impressive (mostly because they are famous), mostly I just find that art museums make my feet ache and my head swim.

This weekend I went to art show. And it was--somehow--simultaneously not at all an art show and also the ultimate, most complete art show in the world. The event is called Art all Night and it happens once a year, for literally one whole night. There is no censorship, no fee, and no jury. Anyone can show and anyone can come. The pieces range from anything from paintings to etch-a-sketches; from sculptures made of clay to old telephones; from robots to plates.

My seven year old sister painted a flower and it was hung next to a huge abstract piece that looked like someone took pink paint and splattered it on a canvas. There are aspiring artists, wannabe artists, people who are just pissed off, and others who just have an idea and a way to say it. There are also real artists, but they are put in their place, right next to all the crap.

Over the course of this night, and the many other years I have attended Art all Night, I have come to an important realization. It is that the dynamics of this event are unique and revealing in ways that no painting could ever hope to match. This place shows art, and humans, for what they really are. This isn't just because it's a random explosion of artistic expression. It's also being in a small room, standing next to a transvestite wearing pink heels and boa, an old married couple, and thirteen year old kid wearing a nose ring. And you're all looking at the same painting of Colonel Sanders.

There probably isn't a clearer definition of art other than "art is expression," and that phrase is ambiguous at best. But if nothing else, this event was truly about expression. And that collection of all those hundreds of expressions (some good, some bad, some ugly) created an experience that really is the human condition.

And you won't find that at the Louvre.