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Winding
our way up The Guggenheim through a retrospective of James Rosenquist's
work. 7:55 PM.
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Down
at the National Arts Club in Gramercy Park, at
the Community Access 2003 Gala they honored the brilliant and
renowned American fashion photographer, Francesco Scavullo,
and sixty blocks north on 89th and Fifth Avenue, in a house Frank
Lloyd Wright designed, the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum,
they honored the internationally famous pop artist James
Rosenquist with a brilliant retrospective of his work.
They were somewhat different crowds, both glamorous in their own
New York way, and both reflections of a sensibility that I am old
enough to remember as brand new, yet still astonishingly fresh and
compelling to the eye.
At the Gugg it was the Pop Art Ball with the guest
of honor James Rosenquist, Jim to his myriad friends. Mr. Rosenquist
was there wearing a copper colored paper suit. Yes, paper. It looks
like rumpled sharkskin. His Retrospective exhibition was up for the
guests to see, bright and vivid and sunny. Yes, sunny and fun and
irony everywhere. |
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Cocktails
in the rotunda of The Guggenheim
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They
set up a big dining tent on the sidewalk in front of
the museum. There was a special performance
by Bjorn Again, “a tribute to
ABBA.” There were auctions, live and silent. The “live” was
presided over by Simon de Pury. Mr.
de Pury who is regarded as one of the greatest auctioneers
in the world, was with Anh Duong who
is now often seen on his arm at these events.
The menu for the evening was created by star chef Eric
Ripert of Le Bernardin, the dress was “Pop Glam.” Howard
Lutnick of Cantor Fitzgerald was the dinner chairman,
and Hugo Boss sponsored the evening.
I love the Gugg. The space itself continues, for me, to intrigue,
amuse and awe. The cocktail reception was held in the rotunda
which is generously towering but not so vast when filled with
bars, tables, electronic equipment and people. The crowd was
a kind of hip uptownish/part Euro/part Wall Street, peppered
with the presence of some famous artists and famous faces. Dennis
Hopper, now more famous as a collector than an actor,
was there taking pictures of the artists, including Mr.
Rosenquist, Julian Schnabel, and Jeff Koons.
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A
table setting at The Gugg
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The Breughelian-looking
Mr. Schnabel, who can appear to be quite phlegmatically bored
at these affairs, looked conversely boyish and enthusiastic
(and rather humble) to be in the company of Mr. Rosenquist.
Or was I just imagining it?
The enormously successful post-Pop artist Mr. Koons, if you’ve
never seen him, looks a little like Tommy Hilfiger’s
younger brother who went to Harvard Law, makes a fortune giving
legal advice to Silicon Valley firms and narrowly escaped dorkdom
by marrying a beautiful statuesque blonde who looks like she
gave up a movie career to be a cool housewife. His manner is
bright and friendly and he was very neighborly gracious when
JH asked him to pose.
Forty years ago, at about this time of the year, Andy
Warhol had one of his first uptown, bigtime exhibitions
in three small rooms in a ground floor gallery in a brownstone
in the East 70s. One room was Brillo boxes, one Campbell soup
boxes and the other Kellogg’s Corn Flakes boxes. To the
world beyond the art world, this was nothing less or more than
a hoot. I know because there I was, as I continue to be, not
of the art world.
Afterwards there was a party at Warhol’s loft, which
at that time was on East 46th Street. The big, gritty loft
was painted silver, with foil wrapped around the poles and
columns of the room. Even the dangling, bare overhead lightbulbs
were silver. The party was bankrolled by a woman named Ethel
Scull who with her husband Robert,
owner of a fleet of taxicabs, had begun to make a name for
themselves as collectors of art that was still selling in the
hundreds (and only occasionally in the thousands). A lot of
the “pop” artists were present, and in retrospect,
it turned out to be one of the first art/media events that
personified the era now remembered as “The Sixties.”
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At
the bar
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The fashion
magazine photographers were there taking pictures. Many of
the artists, mostly men, are now household names although
then still a lean, sometimes scraggly, often a scruffy looking
group. They lined up for a group shot with Jean Shrimpton,
the hottest fashion model of the time. Ethel Scull, furious
that she wasn’t asked to be in the picture, stood in
the middle of the huge space and shouted: “I’m
paying for this fuckin’ party, why aren’t they
taking pictures of me?” Mrs. Scull was taken only semi-seriously
at the time. Not because of her forthright self-presentation
but because Pop Art was still to many, just a gimmick, a
novelty and she was writing checks.
Mrs. Scull’s collection, if it were assembled today would
probably be worth a fortune that could buy all the taxicabs
in New York three times over. Andy Warhol is now immortal,
and James Rosenquist is a rather handsome, slightly funky looking
and youthful eminence gris of the art world and modern
art history, whose appearance last night at the Guggenheim
was not dissimilar in feeling to that of a movie star at a
premiere of his latest spectacle. |
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Pre-dinner
under the tent. 8:10 PM.
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Lietta
Joannou, Jeff Koons, Dakis Joannou, and Justine Koons
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Eli
and Edyth Broad
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James
Rosenquist and Dennis Hopper
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Pucci
Pop
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Lisa
Dennison, Simon de Pury, and Anh Duong
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Julian
Schnabel, Mimi Thompson, and James Rosenquist
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Allison
and Howard Lutnick
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Philipp
Wolff in Hugo Boss
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Mary
Cronson and Denise Saul
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Lisa
and Julian Niccolini
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Michael
Carl and J. Errico
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L.
to r.: Thomas Krens and ladies in red; Dennis Hopper records
the scene on camera.
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Ralph
and Ala Isham
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The
man and Yung Hee
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Henry
Buhl and friend
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Lothar
Reig and Vanessa von Bismarck
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Dennis
Hopper photographing the guest of honor
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Meanwhile,
down at the National Arts Club (which back in the late 19th
century was the private house of Gov.
Samuel Tilden, the ill-fated Presidential candidate
in 1876 who won the popular vote and lost the election): Co-chaired
by Carole Darden-Lloyd and Norma Jean
Darden. Senator Chuck Schumer was Honorary Chair.
Committee members and guests included Marisa Berenson,
Anne Dexter Jones, Cornelia Guest, Elsa Peretti, Gloria Vanderbilt,
Beth Rudin DeWoody, Felicia Taylor, Carroll Petrie, Sean Byrnes,
Hon. Gifford Miller, Jill and Andrew Roosevelt, Elle MacPherson,
Valeria Mazza, Helen Gurley Brown, Amanda Hearst, Karen Bjornsen,
Jo Hallingby, Joanna Bennett, Patricia Duff, Patrick McDonald,
Alden James, Tina Louise, Gato Barbieri, Lisa Jackson, Catherine
Aaron, and Bradley Bayou. Quite a
picture.
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Francesco
Scavullo
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Emcees for the
evening were Andre Leon Talley and Robert
Verdi. Francesco, still a very familiar personage on the
fashion scene in New York, has many many friends and acquaintances
after a distinguished career of more than fifty years as one of
the world’s top fashion photographers. Like the others whom
Community Access serves, he’s also lived and worked with
a psychiatric disability for most of his adult life. At the age
of 21, he suffered the first of a series of nervous breakdowns
and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Since
that time, his photographs have graced hundreds of covers and pages
of magazines including Rolling Stone, Life, Time, Esquire,
Allure, Self, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue and Cosmopolitan, whose
covers he photographed for more than 30 years. He has published
six books. His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art and the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.
Last night he was recognized for that highly successful, career,
notwithstanding his bipolar disorder.
It was a very artsy and-fashion-y evening. The old
Tilden residence is tall and elegant but also funky with its Victorian
design influences. It’s like a big-old relaxed club where you
could imagine the scent of good cigars permeating the atmosphere.
Add a highly eclectic, glam, early 21st-century crowd and you get
New York as vintage champagne. The only one missing was CZ
Guest who passed away last Saturday night.
There was an informal showing of the designs of another of Scavullo’s
old pals, Stephen Burrows, a video tribute by Claus
Eggers, a champagne reception (Veuve Cliquot being the bubbly
of choice), an open bar, a light buffet, a silent auction and hundreds
of the man’s clamoring friends.
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Isabella
Rossellini in a dress by Halston, gold-mesh earrings
by Elsa Peretti, photographed by Francesco Scavullo
for Harper's Bazaar July 1982. From Tiffany
In Fashion by John Loring (Abrams 2003).
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The silent auction
included Scavullo’s first portfolio, released this fall, “Song” which
includes original shots of Mick Jagger, Sting, Janis Joplin,
Cher, Diana Ross and Pavarotti. Also
in the auction: two Stephen Burrows gowns, and a hand-engraved
glass portrait of Scavullo's famous photos of Brooke Shields and Elizabeth
Taylor by artists David Sugar and Carol
Iselin.
Francesco Scavullo graced the evening with his presence to attest
to the capability of people with psychiatric disabilities to lead
productive, creative lives and successful lives. Community Access,
for whom the gala was staged, provides safe, affordable housing and
support services that have helped thousands of New Yorkers with psychiatric
disabilities to move from institutions and shelters to independent
living.
How far we have come in one lifetime in addressing and accepting
the realities of mental health. In Francesco Scavullo’s lifetime
disorders were once regarded as secrets, even shameful, pitiable
ones whose victims were often hidden from the light of life. Francesco
Scavullo was our witness to courage, determination and creative genius
last night at the National Arts Club. Up at the Gugg James Rosenquist
was doing the honors.
I was thinking again of John Kander’s remark
the other night at the Living Landmarks: “Everybody lives
here – everybody from everywhere – and they don’t
kill each other.”
No, they affirm life instead. |
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