(L-R) Marco Bizzarri, Michael Govan, Amy Sherald, Alessandro Michele, wearing Gucci, Steven Spielberg, LACMA Art + Film Gala Co-Chair Eva Chow, wearing Gucci, and Kehinde Wiley attend the 10th Annual LACMA ART+FILM GALA honoring Amy Sherald, Kehinde Wiley, and Steven Spielberg presented by Gucci at Los Angeles County Museum of Art on November 06, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for LACMA)
More than 650 Notable Guests Attended the Event, Co-chaired by Eva Chow and Leonardo DiCaprio
Presented by Gucci
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) hosted its 10th annual Art+Film Gala on November 6, 2021, honoring artists Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley and filmmaker Steven Spielberg. Co-chaired by LACMA trustee Eva Chow and Leonardo DiCaprio, the event was attended by more than 650 prominent guests from the art, film, fashion, and entertainment industries, among others. This year’s event raised $5 million to support LACMA’s film initiatives, as well as future exhibitions, acquisitions, and programming. Returning once again as presenting sponsor of the Art+Film Gala, Gucci expanded its longstanding and generous partnership with the museum by supporting LACMA’s presentation of The Obama Portraits Tour and the companion exhibition Black American Portraits. Audi provided additional support for the gala for the third year.
Art+Film Gala co-chair Eva Chow said, “I am delighted that the return of the Art+Film Gala was such a tremendous success. It was such a pleasure to recognize the creative achievements of all three of our honorees, and to celebrate a decade of art and film at LACMA with our longstanding partner Gucci. I’m so grateful to Alessandro Michele, Marco Bizzari, and everyone at Gucci for their friendship and steadfast support, as well as to Celeste for giving us a spectacular performance that no one will soon forget.”
“It meant so much to honor Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley, both artists of extraordinary vision, as we welcomed their iconic portraits of Barack Obama and Michelle Obama to LACMA, alongside Steven Spielberg—one of the greatest artists of American cinema,” said Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director. “As co-chairs of the Art+Film Gala for 10 years, Eva Chow and Leonardo DiCaprio have made this such an important event for all the creative industries in Los Angeles, and I’m so appreciative of their dedication to the gala and the museum.”
Renowned artists, distinguished guests, and luminaries from the art, film, fashion, music, and entertainment industries arrived at the Art+Film Gala’s red carpet adjacent to Chris Burden’s iconic Urban Light (2008) on Wilshire Boulevard. Guests then enjoyed a cocktail reception and a DJ set by the legendary D-Nice outdoors. Guests also visited the Resnick Pavilion to see two new exhibitions, The Obama Portraits Tour featuring paintings by honorees Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, as well as Black American Portraits. Following cocktails, guests moved into the Art+Film pavilion overlooking Michael Heizer’s Levitated Mass (2012) for a special dinner—a collaboration between chef Joachim Splichal of Patina Restaurant Group and chef Mattia Agazzi of Gucci Osteria da Massimo Bottura in Beverly Hills. Recently awarded a Michelin Star, Gucci Osteria da Massimo Bottura Beverly Hills represents a culinary universe by interlacing the colors and flavors of Italy with its new Californian surroundings.
After Michael Govan and Eva Chow welcomed the crowd, Tracee Ellis Ross gave a tribute to honoree Amy Sherald. Ava DuVernay then gave a tribute to honoree Kehinde Wiley, which was followed by a short film about the artists by Christine Turner. Guillermo del Toro then presented a tribute to Steven Spielberg, and guests enjoyed a montage of the director’s films.
Following the dinner program, guests were invited back outside where Sienna Miller introduced the evening’s performer, Celeste, who delivered a captivating performance of soulful hits from her debut album “Not Your Muse.” Shabaka Hutchings and the Free Nationals shared the stage for her set, and Florence Welch joined Celeste for a special duet of the Marvin Gaye classic “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”
Notable figures from the art world attending the 2021 Art+Film Gala included 2017 Art+Film Gala honoree Mark Bradford, Bisa Butler, Francesco Clemente, Karon Davis, Kenturah Davis, Awol Erizku, Derek Fordjour, Charles Gaines, Todd Gray, Chase Hall, Lauren Halsey, Reggie Burrows Hodges, Thomas Houseago, Kahlil Joseph, Isaac Julien, Glenn Kaino, Shio Kusaka, Deana Lawson, Ariana Papademetropoulos, Ada Pinkston, Calida Rawles, Alison Saar, 2019 Art+Film Gala honoree Betye Saar, Lezley Saar, Kyungmi Shin, Lorna Simpson, Shinique Smith, Tavares Strachan, Gio Swaby, Martine Syms, Henry Taylor, Mickalene Thomas, Mungo Thomson, Honor Titus, Tourmaline, Mary Weatherford, Deborah Willis, Hank Willis Thomas, Jonas Wood, and Richard Wyatt Jr.
Guests from the fashion, entertainment, and business worlds at this year’s event included Judd Apatow, Lyndon Barrois, Jeff Bezos, Hailey Bieber, Kate Capshaw, Asia Chow, Benedict Cumberbatch, 2018 Art+Film Gala honoree Guillermo del Toro, Edward Enninful, Elle Fanning, Will Ferrell, Jami Gertz, Jake Gyllenhaal, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Hall, Paris Hilton, Hwang Dong-hyuk, Robert Iger, Jimmy Iovine, Jung Woosung, Moselle Kleiner, Neil Lane, Donna Langley, Lee Byung-hun, Lee Jung jae, Lee Min-ho, Eva Longoria, Leslie Mann, Julian Morris, Law Roach, Brian Robbins, Mark Ronson, Landon Ross, Liberty Ross, Jeymes Samuel, Ted Sarandos, Princess Alia AlSenussi, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Lucila Solá, Chris Spencer, Sydney Sweeney, Ben Vereen, Audi’s Head of Brand Henrik Wenders, Youn Yuh-jung, Zhang, Jeremy Zimmer, and others.
LACMA trustees in attendance included co-chairs Tony Ressler and Elaine Wynn, Nicole Avant, Willow Bay, Colleen Bell, Rebecka Belldergrun, Allison Berg, Thelma Golden, Suzanne Kayne, Geoffrey Palmer, Viveca Paulin Ferrell, Janet Dreisen Rappaport, Carter Reum, Robbie Robinson, Florence Sloan, Eric Smidt, and Wendy Stark Morrissey. Other notable guests included Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell and Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman.
Wearing Gucci to the event were 2021 Art+Film Gala honorees Amy Sherald, Kehinde Wiley, and Steven Spielberg, Art+Film Gala co-chairs Eva Chow and Leonardo DiCaprio, Gucci Creative Director Alessandro Michele, Gucci President and CEO Marco Bizzarri, performers Celeste, Florence Welch, and D-Nice, and additional special guests including Awkwafina, Alessandro Borghi, Phoebe Bridgers, Sinéad Burke, Kate Capshaw, Asia Chow, Gia Coppola, James Corden and Julia Corden, Benedict Cumberbatch and Sophie Hunter, Miley Cyrus, Dumbfoundead, Kirsten Dunst, Billie Eilish, Elle Fanning, Michael Govan and Katherine Ross, Jake Gyllenhaal, Bethann Hardison, Jeremy O. Harris, Salma Hayek Pinault, Thomas Houseago and Nichole Galicia, Anjelica Huston, Shabaka Hutchings, Dakota Johnson, Reign Judge, Diane Keaton, Lee Byung-hun, Lee Jung-jae, Jared Leto, Lil Nas X, Lim Se-ryung, Chris Martin, Paul Mescal, Sienna Miller, Tyler Mitchell, Anderson .Paak, Ariana Papademetropoulos, Tracee Ellis Ross, Elizabeth Saltzman, Ridley Scott and Giannina Facio Scott, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Mickalene Thomas and Racquel Chevremont, Honor Titus, Tourmaline, Jodie Turner-Smith, Suki Waterhouse, Olivia Wilde, Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian, Steven Yeun, Zhang, and more.
Wines by JNSQ and JUSTIN. Signature soju cocktails by KHEE. Additional beverages by FIJI Water and POM Wonderful.
2021 Art+Film Gala Honorees
About Amy Sherald
Amy Sherald (b. 1973, Columbus) documents contemporary African American experience in the United States through arresting, otherworldly figurative paintings. She reengages with the history of photography and portraiture to invite viewers to participate in a more complex debate about accepted notions of race and representation, and to situate Black heritage centrally in American art. Sherald is based in the greater New York (City) area.
Sherald received her MFA in painting from Maryland Institute College of Art and BA in painting from Clark-Atlanta University. Sherald was the first woman and first African American to ever receive the grand prize in the 2016 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition from the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC; she also received the 2017 Anonymous Was A Woman award and the 2019 Smithsonian Ingenuity Award. Sherald’s work is held in public collections such as the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; the Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD; Embassy of the United States, Dakar, Senegal; Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC; Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; and Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, NC.
About Kehinde Wiley
Kehinde Wiley (b. 1977, Los Angeles) is an American artist best known for his portraits that render people of color in the traditional settings of Old Master paintings. Wiley’s work brings art history face-to-face with contemporary culture, using the visual rhetoric of the heroic, the powerful, the majestic, and the sublime to celebrate Black and brown people the artist has met throughout the world. Working in the mediums of painting, sculpture, and video, Wiley’s portraits challenge and reorient art historical narratives, awakening complex issues that many would prefer remain muted.
In 2018 Wiley became the first African American artist to paint an official U.S. Presidential portrait for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. Former U.S. President Barack Obama selected Wiley for this honor. In 2019 Wiley founded Black Rock Senegal, a multidisciplinary artist-in-residence program that invites artists from around the world to live and create work in Dakar, Senegal.
Wiley is the recipient of the U.S. Department of State’s Medal of Arts, Harvard University’s W. E. B. Du Bois Medal, and France’s distinction of Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. He holds a BFA from San Francisco Art Institute, an MFA from Yale University, and honorary doctorates from the Rhode Island School of Design and San Francisco Art Institute. He has held solo exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally and his works are included in the collections of over 50 public institutions around the world. He lives and works in Beijing, Dakar, and New York.
About Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg is one of the world’s most successful and influential filmmakers, and is currently chairman of Amblin Partners, a corporate descendent of DreamWorks, SKG, which he co-founded in 1994. Among a host of career accolades, he is a three-time Academy Award winner, a Kennedy Center Honoree, a recipient of the Irving G. Thalberg Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 from President Barack Obama.
Spielberg has devoted much of his time and resources to many philanthropic causes. He formed The Righteous Persons Foundation by using all his profits from the release of Schindler’s List, and soon thereafter founded the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, which in 2006 became the USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education. The Institute has recorded more than 55,000 video testimonies with survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides, and is dedicated to making the testimonies a compelling voice for education and action.
In 2021, Spielberg and Kate Capshaw formally launched The Hearthland Foundation, a philanthropic fund to help build a more just, equitable, and connected America. Inspired by the words of the poet Langston Hughes, “O, let America be America again—The land that never has been yet—And yet must be,” Hearthland is founded on the belief that creating a better shared future for our country calls for relationships that cross divides and the moral imagination for what is possible. To that end, the foundation has three overlapping areas of focus: building a shared democracy; telling an honest and generative narrative about this country; and fostering a culture of accompaniment.
About the Art+Film Gala
The Art+Film Gala supports LACMA’s ongoing initiative to make film more central to the museum’s curatorial programming. Since 2011, LACMA has presented 18 exhibitions exploring the intersection of Art+Film featuring American auteurs like Tim Burton and Stanley Kubrick, Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, French New Wave icon Agnès Varda, Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, and film and video works by contemporary African artists—reflecting both a global perspective and the diversity of Los Angeles in the museum’s approach to Art+Film.
About LACMA
Located on the Pacific Rim, LACMA is the largest art museum in the western United States, with a collection of more than 147,000 objects that illuminate 6,000 years of artistic expression across the globe. Committed to showcasing a multitude of art histories, LACMA exhibits and interprets works of art from new and unexpected points of view that are informed by the region’s rich cultural heritage and diverse population. LACMA’s spirit of experimentation is reflected in its work with artists, technologists, and thought leaders as well as in its regional, national, and global partnerships to share collections and programs, create pioneering initiatives, and engage new audiences.
Location: 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, 90036. lacma.org
About Gucci
Founded in Florence in 1921, Gucci is one of the world’s leading luxury fashion brands. As the House marks its 100th Anniversary under the Creative Direction of Alessandro Michele, with Marco Bizzarri as President and Chief Executive, Gucci moves forward into the coming decades with an ongoing commitment to redefining luxury, while celebrating the creativity, innovation, and Italian craftsmanship at the core of its values.
Gucci is part of the global luxury group Kering, which manages the development of a series of renowned Maisons in fashion, leather goods, jewelry and watches.
For further information about Gucci, visit gucci.com.
