It’s Saturday night at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s annual Art + Film gala, a surreal annual fundraiser chaired by Eva Chow and Leonardo DiCaprio. Think of it as an art-world version of the Oscars, where the art famous collide with the famous famous, and anyone who’s anyone gets strategically dressed by Gucci (the evening’s co-sponsor with Audi). To hit the mark on the art and film title, this year’s honorees are Light and Space artist (and L.A. native) Helen Pashgian and Korean director Park Chan-wook, with a guest performance by Elton John. And according to LACMA director Michael Govan, this 11th edition is already the most successful gala ever, having raised “more than $5 million.”
A brigade of black SUVs pulls up in front of Chris Burden’s Urban Light (2008), where the sculpture’s glowing lamp posts are foregrounded by a tinted pink sunset and the unrelenting flashes of a dozen event photographers. Later in the night, Pashgian explains the peculiar properties of Southern California light photons, but for now, a man is shouting from across Wilshire Boulevard.
“What’s the event?” he asks to no response. “Anybody?”
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Scene 1: Opie, Hilton, Bradford, Ringwald
Image Credit: Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for LACMA During the cocktail hour, LACMA’s palm-tree flanked courtyard is a sea of beautiful people bathed in a low, purple light. In a slalom toward the open bar, I zig past Jared Leto and zag past Catherine Opie, who’s chatting with LACMA trustee Carter Reum and his wife, Paris Hilton. “Molly Ringwald is here,” Opie tells me, and the artist is feeling a little starstruck. Her own suit is bespoke Gucci, a gift the brand gave her for the 2018 gala. “Yeah I wore it when I was honored, but why leave it in the closet?” At the center of this party, Mark Bradford towers a full foot above the height of this crowd, hugging Henry Taylor for what feels like a heart-wrenching eternity. “We always gave each other confidence, like, ‘C’mon Henry, we got this,’” Bradford says, recalling the mid-’90s when he and Taylor felt like the oldest students at CalArts. Before sashaying his way back to the center of the floor, he bends down to give me a hug and says, “Good luck to you.”
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Scene 2: A dinner of teeny, tiny tortellini
Image Credit: Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for LACMA Along endless rows and tiers of candlelit tables, miniature tortellini crafted by Beverly Hills’s Gucci Osteria swims in white parmesan sauce. “This is the kind of event that Batman would rescue you from,” says Quinta Brunson, creator and star of the hit ABC series Abbott Elementary. (That is, this whole thing feels a lot like Gotham City high society). I talk painting, surfing, and L.A. origin stories with two of the city’s leading painters: Louise Bonnet, who’s sitting to my left, and Alex Hubbard, who’s sitting across from me. And to my right, member of Libyan exiled royalty Alia Al-Senussi introduces me to her boyfriend (Cahiers d’Arts owner Staffan Ahrenberg) and points out their friends and hosts for the evening, LA Football Club managing owner Larry Berg and LACMA trustee Allison Berg. “This is a night that celebrates the essence of Los Angeles and what the city means to the art world,” Al-Senussi says. Plus, she adds, “I saw Molly Ringwald!”
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Scene 3: Cinema, Science, Light and Space
Image Credit: Photo: Michael Kovac/Getty Images for LACMA Honoree Helen Pasghian takes the stage with a standing ovation. In her sparkling Gucci gown, she channels both Old Hollywood and a generation of formerly maligned, pioneering artists who diligently distilled the Southern California sunshine into eloquent resin-based sculpture. In her speech, the aerospace, entertainment, and art world industries are all just California microclimates, held equally captive by the region’s peculiar and mesmerizing rays. “In the end, this strange light of ours remains what it’s always been,” she says. “Elusive. Mysterious. Unknowable. And therein lies its magic. “
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Scene 4: Finale
Image Credit: Photo Michael Kovac/Getty Images for LACMA At the behest of Idris Elba, the audience shuffles back outside to LACMA’s courtyard, where Sir Elton John sits at a glossy red piano. As a collector of Opie’s work, Elton John once dedicated an Orange County performance of “Tiny Dancer”to her, “and all the women of L.A.,” the artist tells me. “All my friends in the stadium were texting me about it, not knowing I was there.”
My dessert is a chocolate donut a little larger than a Cheerio. Once the beat drops on “Tiny Dancer,” it’s over for this crowd; suddenly everyone’s swaying and singing along like nobody’s watching, and Adrien Brody’s shooting the scene on his phone. Sir Elton is giving us everything—extended outros, piano riffs, perfect vocals. I briefly consider the possibility that this man is the David Hockney of the music industry. As Sir Elton exits the stage, an ebullient young man to my right makes an announcement: “My soul has left my body.”
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Scene 5: Return to Earth
Image Credit: Michael Kovac/Getty Images for LACMA I hear there’s an afterparty at Eva Chow’s house, but I’ve got writing to do. As my heels leave the lush gala carpet and land on the hard cement of the outside world, I’m suddenly very cognizant of the harshness of reality. Just beyond the entrance barricades, dozens of girls are waiting to see Billie Eilish, who’s actually walking right in front of me, dressed in Gucci pajamas. As Eilish climbs into the back seat of a luxury SUV, I walk two streets over, back to the Prius I parked myself. My meter is expired, but there’s no ticket on my windshield. Honestly, could you imagine a more magical night?
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Quotes of Note
Image Credit: Michael Kovac/Getty Images for LACMA “I remember advice from a friend who was familiar with both Korean and American culture […] If you want to show off or brag about something, you should go ahead and do that, because all Americans do…I am not at all surprised for the award that I obviously deserve.”
— Park Chan-wook, delivering his acceptance speech with an English-language interpreter“It’s like the Canada of France.”
— Swiss artist Louise Bonnet describing Switzerland to Alex Hubbard“Don’t let ideas intimidate you. If you don’t know something, be brave enough to say you don’t know instead of staying quiet and trying to be cool. It’s okay to be vulnerable, and it’s okay to not know.”
— Advice from Mark Bradford, based on years of confusion in Charles Gaines’ CalArts classes“I was like, ‘OK, Sixteen Candles!’”
— Lucas Museum director Sandra Dumont-Jackson, one of three people to tell me, unprompted, that they felt starstruck by Molly Ringwald“I’m really proud of you for standing up for yourself. That art dealer was so mean to you.”
— One young lady in the restroom to another“They said we were half-baked, but now we’re half-done.”
— LACMA director Michael Govan on the construction of the museum’s new Peter Zumthor-designed building, which is now 50 percent complete. Badump-bing!