November 6, 2023
By most metrics, Chris Burden’s Urban Light is the most photographed public artwork in Los Angeles. If you walk onto LACMA’s campus, where it’s been installed since 2008, or even just drive by on Wilshire, you’ll spot the selfie-stick-wielding devotees crouching below the cluster of vintage street lamps, trying to get that perfect shot of the bulbs lit overhead. They are there taking pictures day and night. As the plaque tells visitors, the generosity of Disney CEO Bob Iger and his wife Willow Bay allows for the maintenance that keeps it accessible 24 hours a day, and the replacement LED bulbs were funded by the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation.
But there is one evening a year when Urban Light is off-limits to the public. That would be the night of the LACMA Art+Film Gala, the private fundraiser where 650 patrons of the museum honor one luminary from the arts and one luminary from the highest echelon of Tinseltown, with some paying as much as over $100,000 a table as of 2016 for the privilege of doing so. And so on Saturday, I watched as, instead of the stream of ’grammers from the vast reaches of LA County craning their necks and stretching out their arms before Burden’s masterpiece, there was a slew of famous artists, A-list actors, billionaire donors, and models wearing slinky Gucci dresses—part of the Ancora Notte collection that constituted an eveningwear debut of sorts for Gucci’s buzzy new creative director, Sabato De Sarno. Plenty of art parties seem like fashion shows, but the step-and-repeat at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art last weekend was literally one, and a legit important one: a brand with over $11 billion in revenue last year paraded never-before-seen looks before the galagoers rather than in front of the influencers and magazine editors sitting in fold up chairs by a runway in Milan.
After De Sarno and his model crew decked in Ancora Notte frocks—Mariacarla Boscono, Vittoria Ceretti, Kirsty Hume, and Abbey Lee—trotted off from Urban Light, A$AP Rocky, Elliot Page, Andrew Garfield, and Pedro Pascal all came through wearing the designer’s first foray into formal menswear, with the creative director bringing back the extremely 90s-style upside down “G” as a belt buckle. Kim Kardashian flowed through with a never-ending hot pink Gucci gown and Billie Eilish, star of the brand’s latest campaign, wore an outfit that delightfully resembled her usual pajama-esque ensembles.
As for the art, this year’s honoree is Judy Baca, who began painting murals on the walls of the tributary of the LA River over five summers in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and has devoted herself to telling the story of the city through paintings on its public spaces. The evening had its usual share of star-crossings. Larry Gagosian and Ed Ruscha sat on either side of Kardashian at one hard-to-miss table. All around the event, a sampling of the next generation of establishment artists—Jonas Wood, Chase Hall, Jordan Wolfson, Anna Weyant, Louise Bonnet, Lauren Halsey, Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Shio Kusaka—could be seen in conversation with the older ambassadors from the city, including Helen Pashgian, Mary Weatherford, Fred Wilson, and Glenn Ligon.
The event is also one of Hollywood’s splashiest celebrations of filmmaking, with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez in attendance as Brad Pitt introduced the night’s film honoree, director David Fincher. It’s a showcase for a surprise musical performer each year—in 2022, that was Elton John. It’s one of the country’s most successful museum fundraisers, pulling in $5 million on Saturday, attracting the largesse not just of the luminaries on the board, like chair Elaine Wynn, but also philanthropists such LUMA founder Maja Hoffmann and the Ford Foundation president Darren Walker. It’s a celebration of the city of Los Angeles, with the city’s more local celebrities and elected officials in attendance, and a reflection on the municipality’s ever-present obsession with the concept of fame.
Speaking of: the LACMA Art+Film Gala might also be the place where Leonardo DiCaprio—the event’s cohost since its inception, the Oscar-winning icon who makes the streetlamps in Urban Light glow—might be seen with model Vittoria Ceretti. She was there too, in Gucci too.
None of this was in place when LACMA director Michael Govan took over the museum in 2006. There were barely any kind of big tent gatherings at all, and Govan was used to the Manhattan-styled soirees while directing the Dia Art Foundation, and, before that, working under Thomas Krens at the Guggenheim.
“You know, I’m a New Yorker, and when I came out here I assumed everyone just got together for things, but that didn’t really happen,” Govan told me between courses.
Immediately beside us, Garfield was catching up with Daisy Edgar-Jones, and Pascal had found Jessica Chastain laughing away. The waiters were clearing the first course served at long tables, parmigiano reggiano royale with pickled mushrooms and unpasteurized cheese, and starting to wheel out the main course of beef filet with a porcini crust.
In 2011, Govan launched the first Art+Film gala, honoring longtime Angeleno art hero John Baldessari alongside Clint Eastwood. DiCaprio and Eva Chow cohosted, and Gucci started its longtime sponsorship. The event raised more than $3 million, and Govan was well on his way to establishing something. A rep for the museum told me that the museum has raised $51 million through the gala since its inception, and put on 19 shows dedicated to the artists and filmmakers who’ve been honored.
“Now we have this, and we can really bring together fashion and the museum,” Govan said. “There are people who have met each other here, who look forward to seeing each other here.”
Beyond establishing the annual bash, Govan’s other legacy will be his plans, going back to 2009, to replace most of LACMA’s museum space with a new building designed by Pritzker Prize–winning architect Peter Zumthor. And despite setbacks—including the relentless criticism of the Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight, the discovery of fossils while excavating, etc.—the museum says the Zumthor structure is 70% done and on track to open in 2024, perhaps even in time for next year’s gala.
“You see that, right there,” Govan told me, directing my attention to the exposed steel beams that will one day house 150,000 works. “I promise, you’ll like it.”
The building loomed over the cocktail hour, which was supposed to run from 6:00 to 6:30—mercifully the cocktails were flowing nearly two hours later, as the art world and the film world found their own cliques, mingling together occasionally. Both camps were quite heavily represented. Antwaun Sargent introduced me to Colman Domingo, before Domingo went to chat with Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemmons, and Sargent joined his boss, Larry Gagosian, to chat with novelist Emma Cline and the artist Austyn Weiner. “That’s Billie Eilish,” said Jordan Wolfson, affectless, as Eilish walked past. Keanu Reeves came in with the artist Alexandra Grant, and Jon Hamm was standing steps away from the artist Charles Gaines. At the bar toward the back, collector Peter Brant was chatting with the dealer Tony Shafrazi near reps from the David Kordansky Gallery and Hauser & Wirth CEO Ewan Venters.
After finally corralling everyone to their seats, Govan came on to thank some local politicians in attendance—“District two, we’re in district two now, where is Holly Mitchell, oh hi Holly!”—and alluded to recent global events, saying that “Los Angeles is such a diverse community that people crying out in pain everywhere in the world can be heard in LA.”
“The artists and their creativity help see our way forward,” he said.
Eva Longoria introduced Baca, this year’s honoree, who graciously accepted the standing ovation and said, “I’ve been painting over half my life in the LA River, telling the story of the people who disappeared from the river banks.”
And then the room hushed as Pitt took the podium and began a rousing speech in honor of Fincher, who directed the actor in Seven, Fight Club, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
“Well, here’s something you never hear in a David Fincher screening: ‘That was fun. We should have brought the kids,’” he said, in his famously droll pitch. “Hi, my name is Brad Pitt, and I’m a survivor.”
Pitt, now with a shit-eating grin on his face, started offering up some of the things you hear the director say on a Fincher set.
First: “Let’s shoot this now before we all lose interest in living.”
And another: “Okay, we have the out-of-focus version. Now, let’s try it in focus.”
And last: “I want you guys to enjoy yourselves, but that’s what Saturdays and Sundays are for.”
“My life was forever altered one day in ’94 when I sat down for a coffee with David Fincher,” said Pitt. “Now, I don’t know if what we do really matters in the end. What I do think what matters is the people we hitch ourselves to and the indelible mark that they leave upon our very being.”
Fincher, a bit flustered, admitted that growing up, he always wanted to be a visual artist. And maybe he is—he conceded that a movie director might have to oversee hundreds of staff and scout places to shoot and use actors to embody their vision and hustle through meetings with backers to get funding… but artists have to do that, too, right?
“I’m pretty sure Cristo had a lot of weird meetings about locations and street closures and load times and refueling and linear acres of fabric, and somehow I always think of him as an artist,” he said.
In closing the speech, he looked to Baca and said “I’m grateful for my inclusion, and to see things standing next to Judy. I may even be mistaken for an artist.”
Shortly thereafter, Lenny Kravitz came out to rip through a smattering of hits that honestly sounded pretty amazing. Perhaps more amazingly, Lenny looks like he’s about 35 when in fact he’ll actually turn 60 next year—I know, shocking, I know. When he hung up his axe, Kravitz had officially marked the end of the LACMA Art+Film gala. Or so I thought—a short time later, I was at the Chateau Marmont, escorted up to the penthouse on the 6th floor, where Gucci was throwing a house-party-esque rager, complete with the stoner-perfect post-gala food provided by Jon & Vinny’s. Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, both big art collectors, were whipping up the ’za themselves, and upon seeing Jonas Wood and his wife Shio Kusaka enter the party, Shook and Vitolo whisked them into the kitchen to say hello.
De Sarno was holding court on the balcony snapping selfies with Kim Kardashian as the Sunset Strip loomed in the background. At a certain point, Kardashian went to talk to her old boss, Paris Hilton. (Do recall, Kim made an early foray into the pop culture consciousness playing Hilton’s intern on The Simple Life.) Kering CEO Francois Henri-Pinault was drinking a Stella Artois beside Emma Chamberlain, and Jeremy Renner, who’s made very few appearances since his life-threatening snowplow accident earlier this year, hung out by the elevator. And when the DJ dropped “Gimme Gimme Gimme” by ABBA, De Sarno jumped into the middle of a dancing scrum that included all the models, Eilish, and Julia Garner. One of the many Italians in the designer’s entourage yelled into my ears “Welcome to Gucci, baby!”
It was quite the welcome, but at a certain point, one has to leave Gucci, baby, as well. As the hour crept toward one in the morning, our intrepid host, DiCaprio, still in his Gucci tux, peeled off from Sotheby’s vice chairman Jackie Wachter and Wolfson and best friend Tobey Maguire to greet someone across the room. DiCaprio took Ceretti’s hand and walked toward the exit of the Chateau penthouse. It’s art, and film, and fashion, and Lenny Kravitz, and philanthropy, and Los Angeles, and museums, and celebrity, and…maybe…true love.
And that’s a wrap on this week’s True Colors! Like what you’re seeing? Hate what you’re reading? Have a tip? Drop me a line at [email protected].