Museum Events Leave Me Art-Fatigued

I own an art gallery, thus I try to keep up with the art season, which usually includes, by my reckoning, the Art Expo at the Javits Center, the International Fine Art Fair, and the Armory show. Then there are the auctions. Finally, all the museums use this season to roll out their new exhibits. 

Now I have art fatigue. But still I soldiered on last Tuesday, taking in the Museum of the City of New York Director’s Council Winter Ball and the Asia Society's “A Celebration of Asia Week” benefit. Both Upper East Side fetes tied in with new exhibits. The MCNY served up “Valentina: American Couture and the Cult of Celebrity,” so it seemed fitting that the house of Versace stepped up to the plate to host the shindig. After all, isn’t the cult of celebrity the reason Gianni Versace rose to fame in the first place? Although that’s also why he got shot—why go there?

It was an odd show, hard to describe, so I won't. (Remember the art fatigue.) None of the 600 guests seemed too preoccupied with it anyhow, tied up as they were with their own fashion. The museum has another new exhibit, “Broken Glass: Photographs of the South Bronx,” and I wondered, What would the party have been like built around that instead?

But this is one of those best-dressed kind of events, you know. Jamee Gregory wore a short dress, but most stayed with long, including the charming Cynthia Lufkin, who chairs this event dutifully and predictably time and again. She came in Temperley, bright purple if you must know.

All the head dames tend to wear dresses provided by the brand that’s hosting, but this year Versace sent a different style message by positioning decidedly retail-looking mannequins on an elevated platform. I don’t know how you feel about a fashion sponsor placing a currently-for-sale dress collection in a museum hallway, but I know where I stand. Nuff said.

Let’s focus on the positive (like the $450,000 raised), shall we? This event pulls them in, so these days it’s good to see an event adding, not subtracting, to the production values. In this case, there was a massive entry canopy that encompassed the museum’s grand stairs. This was no ordinary entry tent. Two sets of working French doors and no breeze on a cold night is hard to pull off, and women de-coated without shivers and shakes. The lighting was a tad harsh, so let’s give the canopy an A-.

Down Park Avenue a bit at the Asia Society, founded by the Rockefellers, a different set of complex challenges was being met head on. Traditionally, the Asia Society is the organizer and beneficiary of a major gala to open the International Asian Art Fair at the Armory. This year, sensing a softness in sales, they wisely took their event in-house. For the big-ticket buyers, after a prestigious multi-act jazz performance—I could say more but, oh, the fatigue—guests filed into another room for dinner. Then, in a clever first (at least for this reporter), they amortized the use of performers and space by staging a second performance for the younger set. Then, everyone simultaneously filed up to the society’s grand lobby for a multigenerational dance party, called Bangkok Nights Supper Club, sound-fueled by DJ Serebe. Whew, hope I got all that right.

The event showcased what I would call a greatest-hits type of show. Centered around the relationship between the Rockefellers and their friend/curator Sherman Lee, who died last year after a career at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Lee and the Rockefellers had a unique art relationship, taking turns buying bodhisattvas. They are old—13th century, eighth century—they’re bronze and gilt and in magnificent shape. There were two matching carved busts, so ornate and well-preserved, considering they were 2,700 years old. The Rockefellers owned one, Lee the other. Like the Frick’s current Fragonard panels, this is the best kind of exhibit, where you learn the culture and heritage of the museum while seeing the absolute core of the collection. 

For a grand finale, they had a Ganesha, rarely exhibited. If you don’t know what a Ganesha is, don’t feel bad. I once didn’t know either and wrote about it in this space long ago. The problem is that everyone who has a Ganesha talks about Ganeshas as if we all had one in our foyer.  A Ganesha is a god with the head of an elephant (and one broken tusk) and some special powers. If you need more, take your own self to the Asia Society.

Also like the Frick, the Asia Society uses in-house talent to decorate. I just love that. Director of events Hesh Sarmalkar put magnificent gilt lanterns on the bars, so intricate and delicate that you were not allowed to touch. I’ll leave you to judge the wisdom of putting them on the bar. Flowers were pineapple blooms, which are in now, I realize. (Charlotte Moss had them in her holiday room, remember?) Elsewhere, magnificent masks of gesso, wood, gilt, and paint were on pedestals and poles, some in vitrines. Apparently they are borrowed, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one was swiped—I was tempted. Finally, they hung their atrium’s 30-foot trees with woven cotton banners in vivid colors. Combined with the props, it was a worthy example of transforming a vast space with a few remarkable items, as opposed to draping the hell out it, which is the norm….

That’s it. Not another word about fine art. Thank the lord and stars above that my next assignment is a vodka launch. Can’t wait.