Brooklyn Museum's Annual Gala 'The Brooklyn Artists Ball' Set for 4/24

On Wednesday evening, April 24, 2013, the Brooklyn Museum will host its annual fundraising gala, the Brooklyn Artists Ball, celebrating Brooklyn's creative community.

This year's event will commence at 6:30 p.m. with cocktails and hors d' oeuvres in the Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Glass Pavilion. Following the cocktail reception, a seated dinner featuring cuisine by Food in Motion will take place in the Museum's magnificent Beaux-Arts Court. Guests will dine at table environments created for the occasion by eighteen Brooklyn artists: Njideka Akunyili, Daniel Arsham, Jules de Balincourt, FAILE, Jennifer Catron and Paul Outlaw, Joey Frank, Jacob Hashimoto, Steven and William Ladd, Emily Noelle Lambert, Fernando Mastrangelo, Navin June Norling, José Parlá, Analia Segal, Alison Elizabeth Taylor, Max Toth, and Lan Tuazon. Each artist will transform a 40-foot-long table into a specially created work of art that will be on view for one night only.

Immediately following the Ball at 9 p.m., the Museum will host an After-Party that includes dessert and dancing amid an installation created especially for the event by artist Luis Gispert and music by DJs Atlanta De Cadenet Taylor and Andrew Andrew. Vanity Projects, a new art gallery-cum-nail salon, will also be participating in the evening by creating nail designs for guests based on the table installations.

Tickets to the Ball start at $1,000, and tables of eight start at $10,000. Tickets to the After-Party are also available. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit http://ball.brooklynmuseum.org/index.html or contact Inga Glodowski at (718) 501-6436 or inga.glodowski@brooklynmuseum.org. Proceeds from the event will support the Museum's exhibition, education, and outreach programs.

During the evening, the Brooklyn Museum will honor Trustee Barbara Knowles Deb with the Augustus Graham Medal, named for a founder of the Museum and awarded each year in recognition of a strong commitment to the arts and continued support of the Brooklyn Museum. In addition, acclaimed contemporary artists Vik Muniz, Wangechi Mutu, and Roxy Paine, all of whom have strong ties to Brooklyn, will be presented with the Asher B. Durand Award, named for the artist who gave the first work of contemporary art to enter the Museum's collection.

Museum Trustees Dana Ben-Ari and Nikola Duravcevic, and Carla Shen and Chris Schott will chair the event, with Tamara C. Belifanti, Emma Hall, Nilani Trent, and Olivia Wolfe acting as Vice Chairs.

Barbara Knowles Debs studied art history as a Fulbright Scholar in Italy and earned her doctorate from Harvard. Her distinguished career includes service as President of Manhattanville College and the New-York Historical Society. As Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees at the Brooklyn Museum for more than sixteen years, she has maintained a commitment to excellence has influenced all aspects of the Museum's governance and operations, including educational initiatives and public programs, special exhibitions, and the growth and refinement of the Permanent Collection, particularly during her long service as Chair of the Trustee Collections Committee. Her establishment of the Barbara and Richard Debs Exhibition Fund has been instrumental in presenting renowned exhibitions at the Museum that would otherwise not have been possible.

New York-based artist Vik Muniz, a photographer and self-described "low-tech illusionist," uses a wide-range of materials, including chocolate, sugar, junk, and toys, to create works, often art-historical, that he photographs. His work is included in collections of museums throughout the world.

Kenyan-born Wangechi Mutu is a Brooklyn-based artist whose sculptures, works on paper, installations, and videos explore gender, race, and sexual identity using collage and assemblage. A solo exhibition of her work, Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey, will be on view at the Brooklyn Museum from September 27, 2013, through March 9, 2014.

Artist Roxy Paine makes computer-driven machines that mechanically produce paintings and sculptures; he also creates hand-crafted replications of nature that are startlingly realistic. His work, which explores ideas about nature vs. culture and organic vs. artificial, has been internationally exhibited and is included in the collections of many major museums.

Refinery29, the largest independent fashion and style website in the United States, is the media sponsor of the Brooklyn Artists Ball.
Image: Brooklyn Artists Ball 2011. Photo by Eric Weiss