frieze new york 2013, issue 2 - The Art Newspaper

4
NEWS
THE ART NEWSPAPER FRIEZE NEW YORK DAILY EDITION 11-13 May 2013
Starry night for
Tate in New York
Celebrity friends help museum fundraise in style
CHARITY DINNER
New York. The Tate’s third triennial
artists’ dinner in the US on Wednesday—hosted
by Glenda Bailey, the
editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar,
and the ubiquitous Sarah Jessica
Parker, and sponsored by Dior—honoured
the Tate Americas Foundation,
that faintly mysterious, highly
wealthy group of patrons whose
largesse helps boost the museum’s
holdings of Latin American work.
The director of the Tate, Nicholas
Serota, emphasised that this dinner
was about the artists themselves, as
every museum director feels obliged
to say when faced by a sea of business
backers (as if anyone is going to
claim otherwise; when was the
last time a director said “our
museum believes hedge-fund
managers and industrialists
should always come first”?).
There were certainly
plenty of artists in evidence,
with a discreet
emphasis on “artists
of colour” of a sometimes
neglected generation,
hence the
welcome presence of
Barkley Hendricks and Sam Gilliam.
Here was Marina Abramovic, resplendent
in full-length black leather
gloves, with her fashion-designer
friend Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy,
sitting next to Tate Modern’s director,
Chris Dercon; here was the everelegant
Taryn Simon alongside Okwui
Enwezor, handsome Adam
McEwen wooing a table of lovely
lady donors, Guillermo Kuitca cutting
a goateed dash through Argentine
plutocrats and young Matthew Brannon
deep among the bankers. Among
the other “artist honorees” were the
grizzled veterans Lawrence Weiner
and Alex Katz, set against the relative
jeunesse of Elizabeth Peyton, Richard
Phillips and Rirkrit Tiravanija. There
was also, of course, a determinedly
strong representation of Latin
American practitioners, part of
this heroic battle against the
“Yankee Imperialist Gringo”,
including Allora & Calzadilla,
Vija Celmins, Vik Muniz and
Ernesto Neto.
Curiously, the rich people
who make all of this
happen are unrecognisable
by comparison and, although
known to the top
dealers and directors,
remain discreet shadow operators.
Thus, many in the art world could
not put faces to the names of some
of the most important people the
Tate depends upon, whether Tiqui
Atencio Dermirdjian and Jeanne
Donovan Fisher or the all-powerful
co-chairs of this event, Estrellita Brodsky,
Kira Flanzraich, Pamela Joyner,
Amy Phelan and Christen Wilson.
In his speech, Serota outlined
the history of the foundation, kickstarted
in 1988 by a monster donation
from Sir Edwin and Lady Manton,
the interest from which remains a
crucial part of the buying budget.
Previously known as the American
Patrons of Tate, the organisation
was renamed earlier this year to reflect
its “expanding geographical
base of support”. Since 1999, the
charity has raised more than $100m.
The North American Acquisitions
Committee and the Latin American
Acquisitions Committee each have
40 members, who pay $15,000 a
year and are taken around galleries
and studios by Tate curators. On
the day of the dinner, patrons had
toured Chelsea with Mark Godfrey
“Lunch with Sarah
Jessica Parker sold
not once but twice”
The Tate’s
charity event,
held at Skylight
at Moynihan
Station, was
attended by A-
listers including
Sarah Jessica
Parker and the
newly blonde
Anne Hathaway
(left), Marina
Abramovic and
Riccardo Tisci
(right) and
Zaha Hadid
to look at work by artists from Elizabeth
Neel to Carol Bove, and were
disappointed to discover that everything
by Garth Weiser had already
been sold at Casey Kaplan.
Everything also sold at the dinner
auction by Simon de Pury, starting
at $11,000 for Christmas tree decorations
by Nathan Carter. Shopping
and lunch with Sarah Jessica Parker
also sold well, not once but twice,
the actress gamely agreeing at the
last moment to do Dior and the
Four Seasons for two different bidders
at $45,000 a shot, while sailing the
Greek islands on Dakis Joannou’s
luxury Jeff Koons-decorated yacht
Guilty brought $175,000.
Then it was time for dancing
next door, courtesy of DJ artist Jim
Lambie (disappointingly now needing
specs to read his vinyl), among a
froth of youth each paying $200 and
where, impressively, Serota could
still be seen working the room long
after most directors of his stature
would have tottered bed-ward.
The auction raised $500,000 and
the entire evening pulled in more
than $2m, every penny of which
goes towards the acquisition of work
from the Americas.
Adrian Dannatt
DINNER AND PARKER/HATHAWAY: © CASEY FATCHETT, 2013. ABRAMOVIC/TISCI: © PATRICK MCMULLAN
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