The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, has a special knack for bringing artists, their supporters, and Hollywood stars into one talent-packed room. This year's annual gala, presented by BVLGARI, saw the arrival of a new format, MOCA Legends, which paid tribute to three honorees who have shaped the cultural institution's past, present, and future: artist Theaster Gates, architect Frank Gehry, and philanthropist Wendy Schmidt.
Guests at the museum's Geffen Contemporary space in Little Tokyo included actors Jane Fonda, David Alan Grier, and Sarah Paulson, director Ava DuVernay, and artists Andrea Bowers, Charles Gaines, Henry Taylor, and Olafur Eliasson, whose exhibition OPEN could be viewed throughout the evening.
After being led to the dining room by the TAIKOPROJECT Japanese drum ensemble, a series of warm remarks for the first class of MOCA Legends was capped off by a surprise guest: House of Representatives Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who took the stage to introduce honoree Frank Gehry.
Gehry reflected on the role artists have played in his career, particularly after he finished architecture school in the 1950s: “Artists welcomed me into their club… [art is] where I wanted to be, and they opened my eyes to another world,” he said.
During dinner, the rapper and singer Tierra Whack helped guests move from cordial dining to festive revelry. By the end of the night, guests had raised $3.1 million to support the museum’s operations. The spirit of the evening was best summarized by Maria Seferian, MOCA's board chair, who said, “Museums are an idea—of creativity, possibility, and imagination—in other words, freedom. Freedom to imagine and act outside the confines of circumstance.”
