The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) celebrated its 2024 Gala presented by Bvlgari at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in the Little Tokyo neighborhood on the evening of April 13, 2024. Over 1,100 patrons, artists, and leading cultural figures in attendance experienced vivid immersive elements and environments by L.A.-based artist Max Hooper Schneider, who was invited by the museum to provide creative direction for the evening, collectively titled World Without End. GRAMMY-winning artist St. Vincent gave a special performance during the seated dinner, with the event raising $3 million for the museum’s renowned exhibitions, programs, and education initiatives. Following the dinner, the MOCA Gala After-Party featured DJ sets from Kilo Kish and Kitty Ca$h playing lively sets until 11pm.
“Artists serve as both mirrors of the present and portals to other futures,” said Johanna Burton, The Maurice Marciano Director of MOCA. “With Max’s radical transformation of our Gala, and St. Vincent’s incredible performance, the night allowed us all to come together around art and artists as some of the most powerful messengers of our time. It represented the heart and soul of what MOCA is about.”
Upon entering the cocktail portion of the evening, guests experienced one of Hooper Schneider’s first artistic interventions titled Portrait, a luminous meteor crater installed on the Aileen Getty Plaza. Guests also enjoyed viewings of MOCA’s current exhibitions Paul Pfeiffer: Prologue to the Story of the Birth of Freedom and MOCA Focus: Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio. Following drinks and canapés, guests were drawn to dinner by the Makoto Taiko Japanese drum ensemble. The dining area centered around Hooper Schneider’s fantastical, sci-fi installation that enveloped the stage. A menagerie of hybrid creatures interspersed with Hooper Schneider’s unique Dendrite Bonsai and Tide Piepool sculptures burst forth from a garden of synthetic wild flowers and plants, including individual artworks offered for sale to benefit the museum. The stage was flanked by videos of soft coral seascapes projected on the room’s interior surfaces and the whole room set ablaze by a tequila sunrise lighting scheme.
During the dinner portion of the Gala, remarks were provided by MOCA Board Chair Maria Seferian, MOCA Board President and Gala Co-Chair Carolyn Clark Powers, Bvlgari’s President of North America Hervé Perrot, MOCA Trustee and Gala-Co-Chair Terri Smooke, Burton, and MOCA Trustee and Gala-Co-Chair Karyn Kohl. Video tributes welcoming newly appointed Artist Trustees Tala Madani and Rodney McMillian and thanking Mark Grotjahn at the end of his ten-year term were played. Seferian spoke to the transformative nature of the evening, and how the event teemed with an artistic spirit of creation that MOCA has celebrated since its founding: “Max’s presentation asks us to look beyond the maudlin and instead consider the miraculous. Returning to the artist-designed MOCA Gala is an idea about a relationship between artist and museum, not intended to privilege or position any one artist, but rather continuing a conversation rendered mute without each of them.”
Also announced were unique artworks created by Hooper Schneider for MOCA, made available for purchase after the Gala to benefit museum programs. For more information on Hooper Schneider’s benefit works, please contact gala@moca.org.
Following dinner was a performance by three-time GRAMMY-winning artist St. Vincent, whose seventh studio album All Born Screaming will be released on April 26, 2024. Her performance featured two songs from the forthcoming album—“Flea” and “Broken Man”—as well as a cover of Portishead’s “Glory Box.”
The 2024 Gala featured a variety of notable attendees and guests from art, entertainment, fashion, film and philanthropy. In attendance was performer St. Vincent, joined by notable figures including M Chow, Christine Chiu, Beth DeWoody, Ava DuVernay, Anne Ellegood, Kim Gordon, David Alan Grier, Miranda July, Brooke Kanter, Christine Y. Kim, Liza Mauer, Jarl Mohn, Diana Nawi, Hervé Perrot, Ann Philbin, Esthella Provas, Keanu Reeves, Keni Silva, and Candy Spelling; MOCA Trustees Dallas Price-Van Breda, Kathi B. Cypres, Tim Disney, Jennifer Hawks Djawadi, Clifford J. Einstein, Susan Gersh, Eugenio Lopez, Tala Madani, Mary Klaus Martin, Rodney McMillian, Barbara Kruger, Nancy Kwon Merrihew, Heather Podesta, Christina Quarles, Pete Scantland, Terri Smooke, Jeffrey Soros, Berry Stein, Julie Wainwright, Christopher V. Walker and Vida Yaghmai; artists Doug Aitken, Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio, Walead Beshty, Louise Bonnet, Andrea Bowers, Widline Cadet, Maria A. Guzmán Capron, Cynthia Daignault, Karon Davis, Tacita Dean, Stan Douglas, Lisa Edelstein, Shepard Fairey, Charles Gaines, Malik Gaines, Liz Glynn, Piero Golia, Sayre Gomez, Alexandra Grant, Jennifer Guidi, Trulee Hall, Evan Holloway, Elliott Hundley, Greg Ito, JPW3, Mary Kelly, Shio Kusaka, Robert Longo, Grant Levy-Lucero, Paul McCarthy, Nathaniel Mellors, Rebecca Morris, Catherine Opie, Catalina Ouyang, Paul Pfeiffer, Lauren Quin, Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Sterling Ruby, Robert Russell, Analia Saban, Blair Saxon-Hill, Kenny Scharf, Melanie Schiff, Max Hooper Schneider, Alexandro Segade, Adam Silverman, Brooklin Soumahoro, Cole Sternberg, Henry Taylor, Samantha Thomas, Gillian Wearing, Mary Weatherford, Jordan Wolfson and Jonas Wood.
The MOCA Gala After-Party immediately followed the seated dinner, with lively DJ sets by Kilo Kish and Kitty Ca$h.
Image credit: Owen Kolasinski/BFA
