MOCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles celebrated it’s 2019 Benefit in Downtown Los Angeles on Saturday night with a benefit dinner and auction for nearly 700 guests, and included celebrity attendees and benefactors including Orlando Bloom, Katy Perry, Billy Idol, China Chow, Keanu Reeves, Sharon Stone, Mike Ovitz, Steve Tisch and many more.
Beginning the evening with an outdoor red carpet and cocktail reception guests sipped on speciality drinks while celebrating MOCA‘s 40th Anniversary Collection, The Foundation of the Museum: MOCA’s Collection. Curated by Senior Curator and Administrative Department Head Bennett Simpson, the collection is comprised of immersive installations, ideas on Americanness, figuration and the intersection of the body with architecture, and include featured pieces by Chris Burden, Liz Larner, Raymond Pettibon, John Baldessari, and Kara Walker. With musical guests Patti Smith & Lenny Kaye and Rufus Wainwright, the benefit honored all of the artists who have played and will play such a vital contribution to the core mission of MOCA to engage and educate the public with contemporary art.
MOCA Board of Trustees Chair, Maria Seferian said to the audience “I went back to the catalogue from our first show, titled The First Show: Painting and Sculpture from Eight Collections: 1940 to 1980 and I was struck by what our Founding Director, Pontus Hulten, wrote in the first essay of MOCA’s first catalogue: ‘It is important that the ideas of collecting and building great collections be present,’ But most importantly, he wrote: ‘The role of the artist not only as the maker of art but as a secret and visionary force in society should be apparent.’ This feels as relevant today standing here in the museum founded by artists, in a room largely filled by artists, as it did 40 years ago.”
Raising over $3 Million dollars for museum operations and a pledge of $10 Million by MOCA Board of Trustees President Carolyn Clark Powers to permit free general admission for all museum guests, the MOCA 2019 Benefit, crafted by MOCA’s New Director Klaus Biesenbach, was certainly a night to remember in Los Angeles!
