Museums & Institutions
From Billie Eilish to Ed Ruscha, See the Glitzy Guests at LACMA’s Annual Art+Film Gala
This year's event, which honored Judy Baca and David Fincher, raised more than $5 million.
This year's event, which honored Judy Baca and David Fincher, raised more than $5 million.
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The place to be in Los Angeles on the night of November 4, quite evidently, was LACMA. The museum’s 12th Art+Film Gala was in full swing, held this year to honor artist Judy Baca and filmmaker David Fincher, and attended by the biggest names from the art, film, music, and fashion worlds.
The museum’s annual party celebrates the intersection of art and film, while raising funds to support LACMA’s programming. This year’s event was co-chaired by LACMA trustee Eva Chow and actor Leonardo DiCaprio, alongside Gucci’s creative director Sabato De Sarno. They oversaw an edition that featured a dinner rustled up by chef Mattia Agazzi, a live performance by Lenny Kravitz, and a showcase of Gucci’s first evening wear collection. By the end of the night, the gala had raised more than $5 million.
Tributes were of course paid to the evening’s honorees. Fincher was introduced by Brad Pitt, who recognized the director’s films such as Seven (1995) and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011). “I suppose I’ve never looked at directing as artistic because it required so many actual artists just to get through a given day,” Fincher said onstage. “I am grateful for my inclusion this evening, standing next to Judy.”
Baca herself was feted with a screening of Baca, a short film by documentarians Alejandra Vasquez and Sam Osborn. The honor follows the opening of the artist’s first solo show at LACMA, anchored by an expansion of Baca’s landmark mural, The Great Wall, which, since 1978, has been added to by some 400 youths and artists in a bid to capture the histories of local communities.
At the gala, Baca saluted these collaborators. “There are hundreds, probably thousands, of people with me on the stage tonight,” she said, “accepting with deep gratitude this acknowledgment of our work, often against all odds, to remember our stories and paint them on the walls of our communities around the nation and the world.”
And then there were the stars. LACMA’s enviable guest list saw the likes of musicians A$AP Rocky and Billie Eilish, and actors Jessica Chastain, Keanu Reeves, and Pedro Pascal posing in front of Chris Burden’s Urban Light (2008) on Wilshire Boulevard. Artists Kenny Scharf, Ed Ruscha, and Catherine Opie took to the red carpet, while inside the venue, Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian rubbed shoulders with Larry Gagosian and Jeffrey Deitch.
We can’t name them all! See the famous faces who turned up for LACMA’s big night below.
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