The Art Institute of Chicago celebrated the opening of two new Asian art galleries on Friday night with a gala attended by some 450 guests. Madhuvanti Ghose, the museum's associate curator of Indian, Southeast Asian, Himalayan, and Islamic art, oversaw the gala's planning efforts and said that current events led to a scaled-back version of the evening she had initially envisioned.
"We were hoping to have the princess of Jaipur at the event," said Ghose. But November's attacks on Mumbai and current bomb threats against the country made it an inopportune, and perhaps inappropriate, time for guests to fly in from India, and planners had to tone down the festivities accordingly.
Still, Ghose deemed the opening of the Asian galleries "a momentous occasion," and it was important to her that the gala was attended by key members of the local Indian-American community. Ghose described that community as "an audience that we [at the museum] are trying to warm up" and make more familiar with the Art Institute. "Many of them have never seen the museum in the way that the gala allows them to see it."
Based on her own networking efforts and the connections of her co-chairs, Ghose and the planning committee put together a carefully tailored guest list that included business leaders from the Indian-American population in the city and surrounding suburbs. Also invited were members of the museum's board of trustees and "people who are mad about Asian art," Ghose said. Ultimately, the gala saw "a wonderfully diverse crowd," she continued. "For the first time, we had an almost half-and-half representation of Americans and Indian-Americans."
The event's Kehoe-designed decor included light boxes swathed in bright dupioni silks and centerpieces comprised of floating lotus blossoms. "It was a smart, low-key, contemporary look that I'm trying to bring into the Art Institute and into Chicagoland in general," Ghose said. "At other events, I never see contemporary India being reflected. It's usually represented with an old-school '70s or '80s look."
