2017 Art+Film LACMA Gala, LA
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| Photo: Getty Images for LACMA |
When: Saturday, November 4, 2017
Hot Spot: LACMA, Los Angeles, CA
Deets: The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) hosted its seventh annual Art+Film Gala on Saturday, November 4, 2017, honoring artist Mark Bradford and filmmaker George Lucas. Co-chaired by LACMA trustee Eva Chow and actor Leonardo DiCaprio, the evening brought together more than 600 distinguished guests from the art, film, fashion, and entertainment industries, among others. The evening raised more than $4.4 million, with proceeds supporting LACMA’s film initiatives and future exhibitions, acquisitions, and programming. The 2017 Art+Film Gala was made possible through the long-term and generous support of Gucci.
Eva Chow, co-chair of the Art+Film Gala said, “I’m thrilled with the success of this year’s Art+Film Gala. It means so much that this incredible group of people came together to honor Mark and George and to support LACMA. I’m so grateful to Gucci for being our steadfast partner in this event since the beginning, and of course to Annie Lennox for her outstanding performance!”
“I am immensely grateful to Eva Chow and Leonardo DiCaprio, who have firmly supported LACMA’s art and film initiative and served as the Art+Film Gala Co-chairs since the event’s inaugural year,” said Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director. “We honor the achievements of Mark Bradford and George Lucas—two artistic innovators who also share a deep commitment to art and education. Mark has invested in the L.A. community with Art + Practice, bringing museum-quality art exhibitions and youth services to Leimert Park, and George, through his George Lucas Educational Foundation, has positively impacted the course of learning and lifelong achievement of students. We are thrilled to celebrate their achievements and contributions.” The Art+Film Gala began at LACMA, with red-carpet arrivals of art world and entertainment luminaries, fashion icons, and renowned artists at its 6th Street entrance. Guests then moved to a cocktail reception in and around the museum’s Primal Palm Garden—a work that has been continuously developed since 2010 by 2016 Art+Film Gala honoree Robert Irwin. After cocktails, guests proceeded to the Art+Film pavilion overlooking Michael Heizer’s Levitated Mass (2012), where they were seated for a special dinner prepared by Patina’s Joachim Splichal.
Michael Govan and Eva Chow welcomed the crowd. Further into the evening, Anderson Cooper contributed an on-screen conversation with honoree Mark Bradford, followed by a tribute to the artist from Ari Emanuel, and a brief documentary about Bradford by filmmaker Dime Davis. The audience enjoyed a short film about George Lucas by Jen Speed and JAKS Cinema, in association with Lucasfilm, with narration by David Oyelowo. Actress Kerry Washington presented a moving tribute to Lucas from the stage.
Following the presentations, actress Salma Hayek introduced Annie Lennox, who gave a dynamic performance of “Pavement Cracks,” “There Must Be An Angel,” “Here Comes The Rain Again,” “No More I Love You’s,” and “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).”
Luminaries from the art world attending the 2017 Art+Film Gala included honoree Mark Bradford, David Adjaye, Don Bacigalupi, Christopher Bedford, Lori Bettison-Varga, Kerry Brougher, Petra Collins, George Davis, Walton Ford, Larry Gagosian, Ellen Gallagher, Frank and Berta Gehry, John Gerrard, Thelma Golden, Mark Grotjahn and Jen Guidi, Joanne Heyler, Thomas Houseago and Muna El Fituri, Alex Israel, Naima Keith, Paul McCarthy, Ann Philbin, Nancy Rubins, Sean Shim-Boyle, Diana Thater and T. Kelly Mason, Eileen Harris Norton, Philippe Vergne, Mary Weatherford, Iwan and Manuela Wirth, Jonas Wood and Shio Kusaka, and Kulapat Yantrasast.
The entertainment, fashion, and business worlds were represented by honoree George Lucas, 2016 Art+Film Gala honoree Alejandro González Iñárritu, gala co-chair Eva Chow, gala co-chair Leonardo DiCaprio, Gucci President and CEO Marco Bizzarri, and performer Annie Lennox. Other notable guests include Amy Adams, Trevor Andrew and Santigold, Naomi Campbell, Timothée Chalamet, Asia Chow, Gia Coppola and Jacqui Getty, Alfonso Cuarón, Lee Daniels, Dime Davis, Guillermo del Toro, Julie de Libran, Barry Diller, Ava DuVernay, Ari Emanuel, Jane Fonda, Tom Ford, Simon Fuller, Melanie Griffith, Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Hamill, Armie Hammer and Elizabeth Chambers, Grant and Tamia Hill, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Robert Iger, Jimmy Iovine and Liberty Ross, Dakota Johnson, Kim Kardashian West and Kris Jenner, Byung-hun Lee, Jared Leto, Elle Lorraine, Mia Maestro, Tobey Maguire, Tamara Mellon, Elon Musk, Khaled Abol Naga, Hari Nef, Juan Carlos Obando, Guy Oseary, Brad Pitt, Doug Pray, Behati Prinsloo, Wolfgang and Gelila Puck, Usher Raymond, Zoe Saldana, Sheryl Sandberg, Anna Deavere Smith, Barbra Streisand and James Brolin, Soko, Inez Van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, Lindsey Vonn, Lucy Walker, Annabelle Wallis, Kerry Washington, Yoshiki, and Renée Zellweger.
Wearing Gucci to the event were Eva Chow, Mark Bradford, Michael Govan and Katherine Ross, Amy Adams, Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah, Trevor Andrew and Santigold, Rowan Blanchard, Charlotte Casiraghi, Timothée Chalamet, Asia Chow, Petra Collins, Gia Coppola, Alfonso Cuarón, Jacqui Getty, Jake Gyllenhaal, Salma Hayek Pinault, Mellody Hobson, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Dakota Johnson, performer Annie Lennox, Lola Lennox, Tali Lennox, Jared Leto, Billie Lourd, Mia Maestro, Hari Nef, Guy Oseary and Michelle Alves, Brad Pitt, Behati Prinsloo, Zoe Saldana and Marco Perego, Soko, Lindsey Vonn, Kerry Washington, and Dasha Zhukova.
Additional support for the evening was generously provided by Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. Champagne for the evening was provided by Laurent-Perrier.
Mark Bradford was born in 1961 in Los Angeles, California, where he lives and works. In 1997 Bradford graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California. Bradford is currently representing the United States at La Biennale di Venezia 2017 with a major solo show, Mark Bradford: Tomorrow Is Another Day, on view May 13–November 26, 2017 in Venice, Italy. From November 2017, Bradford will present Pickett’s Charge, a monumental cyclorama of commissioned paintings, at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.
Organized on the occasion of the 2017 Art + Film Gala, LACMA presents a new large-scale painting by Bradford titled 150 Portrait Tone (2017). The piece was conceived after the fatal shooting of Philando Castile by a police officer in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in July 2016. Castile, a nutrition services supervisor at an elementary school, was shot after being pulled over in his car—an incident that was livestreamed on Facebook by Castile’s girlfriend, who was sitting in the passenger seat next to him. Installed in the museum’s Resnick Pavilion, the work will remain on view through January 2019.
In 2015, Bradford was presented with the U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts. In 2013, he was elected as a National Academician by the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts in New York. Bradford is also a recipient of the David C. Driskell Prize (2016); the MacArthur Fellowship (2009); the Wexner Center Residency Award (2009); and the Bucksbaum Award, granted by The Whitney Museum of American Art (2006). Bradford has shown extensively in international and national exhibitions. Recent solo shows include Mark Bradford: Receive Calls on Your Cell Phone From Jail, Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, MO (2016); Tears of a Tree, The Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2015); Scorched Earth, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2015); and Mark Bradford: Sea Monsters, The Rose Art Museum, Waltham, MA (2014). Select public collections include The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; MCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.
Filmmaker George Lucas was born in 1944 in Modesto, California. Lucas’s devotion to timeless storytelling and cutting-edge innovation has resulted in some of the most successful and beloved films of all time, including the Star Wars Saga and Indiana Jones, while also pioneering new digital standards for sophistication in special effects and sound, inspiring generations of young people to follow their imagination and dreams.
Taking a philanthropic leadership role in applying his technical and storytelling expertise to the classroom, Lucas founded the George Lucas Educational Foundation (Edutopia.org) in 1991 to highlight proven strategies, tools, and resources for creating lifelong learners. Lucas also serves on the board of The Film Foundation and the USC School of Cinematic Arts Board of Councilors.
Some of Lucas’s accolades include the National Medal of Technology, the nation’s highest award for technological achievement; the National Medal of Arts, the highest award presented to artists and patrons of the arts by the United States Government; the prestigious NAACP Vanguard Award; and the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal.
In 2017, the Los Angeles City Council approved plans to build the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which will include galleries, theaters, a library, classrooms, green space, and a café and restaurant. The institution, scheduled to open in 2021 in Exposition Park, will be a one-of-a-kind gathering place to experience art and exhibitions dedicated to the power of visual storytelling across a variety of media, including paintings, illustrations, animation, digital art, comic art, photography, and more. The Lucas family will fully fund the museum’s construction, collection, and operating endowment with no cost to taxpayers to build the museum.
Annie Lennox is an internationally acclaimed singer-songwriter and human rights activist. Lennox rose to fame in partnership with Dave Stewart as Eurythmics in the early 1980s with the classic single “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)”. In the decade to follow, Eurythmics went on to achieve more than 20 international hits, selling over 80 million albums. In 1992, Lennox released her highly acclaimed debut album Diva, selling over six million copies worldwide and establishing her career as a solo artist.
Lennox has received numerous accolades, including eight BRIT Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement); four Ivor Novello Awards; the Livingstone Medal; the George Harrison Global Citizen Award; three MTV Awards; four Grammy Awards; 10 Grammy nominations; 26 ASCAP Awards; a Golden Globe; and an Academy Award.
In 2003, she performed at the inaugural concert for Nelson Mandela’s HIV/AIDS Foundation, which became a pivotal point on her life’s course and was the first of many performances to advocate, raise awareness, and fundraise for the issue. Her experiences in South Africa with 46664, in Uganda with Comic Relief, and in Malawi with Oxfam inspired her to found the SING campaign, supporting women and children affected by HIV/AIDS. Lennox has served as a UNAIDS International Goodwill Ambassador, Oxfam, Amnesty International, and The British Red Cross, she has also been a Special Envoy for Scottish Parliament and the City of London.
She received the Woman of Peace Award at the 2009 World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates and in 2011 was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in recognition of her humanitarian work. Lennox is also the founder of The Circle—a not-for-profit organization that works to support and empower some of the most marginalized women and girls around the globe.
Lennox is also a patron and tireless supporter of mothers2mothers (m2m) a global NGO with the mission of ending mother-to child transmission of HIV and improving the health of families and communities.
The Art+Film Gala supports LACMA’s ongoing initiative to make film more central to the museum’s curatorial programming. Since 2011, LACMA has presented 12 exhibitions exploring the intersection of Art+Film featuring American auteurs like Tim Burton and Stanley Kubrick, Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, French New Wave icon Agnès Varda, and film and video works by contemporary African artists—reflecting both a global perspective and the diversity of Los Angeles in the museum’s approach to Art+Film. Most recently, more than 170,000 visitors attended Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters (August 1–November 27, 2016), exploring the celebrated Mexican filmmaker’s vast collection of paintings, drawings, maquettes, artifacts, and concept film art.
Spotted: George Lucas, Mark Bradford, Eva Chow, Leonardo DiCaprio, Annie Lennox, Kerry Washington
LACMA trustees in attendance included Ambassador Nicole Avant, Willow Bay, Rebecka Belldegrun, Allison Berg, Troy Carter, Eva Chow, Ann Colgin, Janet Crown, Kelvin Davis, Gabrielle Garza, Thelma Golden, Lady Grainge, Victoria Jackson, Suzanne Kayne, Bryan Lourd, Michael Lynton, Geoff Palmer, Janet Dreisden Rappaport, Lynda Resnick, Tony Ressler, Carter Reum, Soumaya Slim de Romero, Steven Roth, Carole Bayer Sager, Eric Smidt, Wendy Stark Morrissey, Casey Wasserman, Elaine Wynn, and Dasha Zhukova. Other notable guests included Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and Los Angeles Councilman David Ryu.
Hint For The Average Socialite: For more information about the 2017 Art+Film Gala tickets and table sales, contact artandfilm@lacma.org or 323 857-4770.
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