Guests Celebrated with MGMT at The Sold Out 2024 Whitney Art Party

MGMT (Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser). Photos by Madison Voelkel/BFA.com

Notable guests include Sofia Franklyn, Emily Hamphire, Erin Dana Lichy, Ashley Longshore, Olivia Palermo, and Cynthia Rowley.

The Whitney Museum of American Art celebrated its annual Art Party, a botanical-inspired event, with co-chairs Natalie Ball, Edward Barsamian, Steven Beltrani, Micaela Erlanger, and Kambui Olujimi. Partygoers were entertained with DJ sets by indie pop duo MGMT and Samantha Urbani. Young patrons, emerging artists, and guests from the worlds of art, fashion, business, philanthropy, and entertainment spent an unforgettable evening immersed in the beauty of nature. Art Party, a fundraiser for the Museum’s Independent Study Program, was sold out and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Hosted by the Museum’s Whitney Contemporaries, proceeds from the Art Party provide critical support to the Whitney’s renowned Independent Study Program (ISP). Founded in 1968, ISP is one of the country’s leading postgraduate programs in studio art, curatorial studies, and critical studies. The program furthers the Whitney’s mission to support living artists throughout their careers.

Sponsored by Aesop and Cynthia Rowley and with tequila provided by Tequila Casa Dragones and wines by Dry Farm Wines, Art Party is a celebrated cornerstone of New York’s arts and philanthropy calendar.

Guests gathered in the Museum’s ground floor in the Kenneth C. Griffin Hall for a botanical-themed evening of dancing, craft cocktails and signature mocktails, and music. Guests also enjoyed exclusive access to the Museum’s galleries, as well as a special first look at Harold Cohen: AARON, an exhibition exploring the foundational stages of AI in artmaking, before the exhibition opens to the public.

Female-founded boutique creative agency East Olivia designed the cascading fresh floral arrangements. Guests dined on hors d’oeuvres by Olivier Cheng Catering. The craft cocktails for the evening were made by Tequila Casa Dragones and signature mocktails were created by artists and co-chairs Natalie Ball and Kambui Olujimi.

2024 Art Party: https://bfa.com/events/43368/share/8527e8840c06a6
Photos by: Madison Voelkel/BFA.com

NOTABLE GUESTS: Actors Emily Hampshire, Katherine McNamara, Sally Pressman, Yaritza Reyes; media personalities Sofia Franklyn, Pieper James, Serena Kerrigan, Erin Dana Lichy, Olivia Palermo; models Emira D’Spain, Audrey Hilfiger, Johannes Huebl, Natalie Lim Suarez; designers and stylists Maurice Diallo, Wes Gordon, Marty Harper, Eny Lee Parker, Cynthia Rowley, Nina Tiari; artists Natalie Ball, Peter Burr, Lola Flash, Ashley Longshore, Kambui Olujimi, Salman Toor; DJs Dede Lovelace, The Muses (Jack James Busa and Daniel Walters); influencers Grace Atwood, Griffin Maxwell Brooks, Barbie Brigoni, Victoria Casalino, Olivia Duncan, Olivia Dunnigan, Jules Fox, Christina Grasso, Sarah Hamrick, Kit Keenan, Cassidy Lynn, Brooke Miccio, Luca Mornet, New York Nico, Margo Oshry, Coco Schiffer, Lauren Tiby, Melissa Vale, Caroline Vazzana, Carly Weinstein; photographers Alice Gao, Gabriel Perez Silva, Brandon Woelfel; fitness star Robin Arzón; Museum supporters Paul Arnhold, David Cancel, Claudia Laviada, Fern and Lenard Tessler; supporters of the arts Fred Baba, Samantha Brand, Drew Butler, Roman Chiporukha, Sophie Cohen, Peter Davis, Jonathan Densa, Adam Fields, Jonathan Gardenhire, Leah Glimcher, Josh Glass, Hannah Gottlieb-Graham, Ethan James Green, Alexander Hankin, Danielle Hankin, Jordan Huelskamp, Flora Irving, Sophia Adrianna Kanavos, Nicholas Kanavos, Stephanie Ketty, Casey Kohlberg, Molly Krause, Benoit Lagarde, Suzanna Lee, Alex Marinier, Kevin McIntosh Jr., Brian McKinney, Polina Proshkina, Lilah Ramzi, Theo Ressler, Paula Sanders, Catherine Smith Licari, Elise Taylor, Greer Tessler and Travis Miranda; curators Kim Conaty, Marcela Guerrero, Meg Onli, Laura Phipps, Drew Sawyer, and Scott Rothkopf, the Alice Pratt Brown Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

BENEFIT COMMITTEE

Chair

Alexander Hankin

Committee

Fred Baba, Samantha Brand, Drew Butler, Roman Chiporukha, Jonathan Densa, Adam Fields, Leah Glimcher, Danielle Hankin, Flora Irving, Sophia Adrianna Kanavos, Nicholas Kanavos, Casey Kohlberg, Molly Krause, Ashley Longshore, Alex Marinier, Brian McKinney, Polina Proshkina, Lilah Ramzi, Theo Ressler, Sydney Sadick, Paula Sanders, Catherine Smith Licari, Greer Tessler and Travis Miranda, Ben Texter.

HOST COMMITTEE

Ephraim Asili, Peter Burr, Jack James Busa (The Muses), CULTURED, Peter Davis, Maurice Diallo, Family Style, Lola Flash, Sofia Franklyn, Alice Gao, Jonathan Gardenhire, Ethan James Green, Marty Harper, Sarah Harrelson, Audrey Hilfiger, Jordan Huelskamp, Kit Keenan, Serena Kerrigan, Stephanie Ketty, Benoit Lagarde, John Leguizamo, Erin Dana Lichy, Mary Manning, Kevin McIntosh Jr., Yaritza Reyes, Rachel Rossin, Elise Taylor, Clarissa Tossin, Devon Walker, Daniel Walters (The Muses).

WHITNEY CONTEMPORARIES

Co-Chairs

Micaela Erlanger, Adam Fields

Trustee Liaison

Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo

Executive Committee

Fred Baba, Michael Carl, Jessica Gersh, Alexander Hankin, Molly Krause, Beth Kurteson, Suzanna Lee, Heather Ripley, Catherine Smith Licari.

ABOUT THE WHITNEY

The Whitney Museum of American Art, founded in 1930 by the artist and philanthropist Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), houses the foremost collection of American art from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Mrs. Whitney, an early and ardent supporter of modern American art, nurtured groundbreaking artists when audiences were still largely preoccupied with the Old Masters. From her vision arose the Whitney Museum of American Art, which has been championing the most innovative art of the United States for ninety years. The core of the Whitney’s mission is to collect, preserve, interpret, and exhibit American art of our time and serve a wide variety of audiences in celebration of the complexity and diversity of art and culture in the United States. Through this mission and a steadfast commitment to artists, the Whitney has long been a powerful force in support of modern and contemporary art and continues to help define what is innovative and influential in American art today.

Whitney Museum Land Acknowledgment

The Whitney is located in Lenapehoking, the ancestral homeland of the Lenape. The name Manhattan comes from their word Mannahatta, meaning “island of many hills.” The Museum’s current site is close to land that was a Lenape fishing and planting site called Sapponckanikan (“tobacco field”). The Whitney acknowledges the displacement of this region’s original inhabitants and the Lenape diaspora that exists today.

As a museum of American art in a city with vital and diverse communities of Indigenous people, the Whitney recognizes the historical exclusion of Indigenous artists from its collection and program. The Museum is committed to addressing these erasures and honoring the perspectives of Indigenous artists and communities as we work for a more equitable future. To read more about the Museum’s Land Acknowledgment, visit the Museum’s website.

ABOUT MGMT

MGMT was formed by Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden in 2001 while at Wesleyan University. Since their first release, the EP Time To Pretend in 2005, MGMT have released four critically acclaimed albums: Oracular Spectacular (2008), Congratulations (2010), MGMT (2013), and Little Dark Age (2018). In December 2019, the band released the new songs “In The Afternoon” and “As You Move Through the World”.

Since October 2020, MGMT’s “Little Dark Age” has become a viral sensation, being used by millions of users via TikTok and is currently the band’s biggest streaming song.

MGMT’s long-awaited new album Loss Of Life, produced by MGMT and Patrick Wimberly, will be released February 23, 2024 on Mom + Pop. The first two singles “Mother Nature” and “Bubblegum Dog” from the forthcoming album were released in late 2023.

Oracular Spectacular was named album of the year by NME and was one of Rolling Stone’s top 20 albums of the decade, while selling over 2 million copies worldwide and producing the hits “Time To Pretend,” “Electric Feel,” and “Kids”.

MGMT have received multiple Grammy Award nominations and have performed at festivals around the world from Glastonbury to Bonnaroo to Lollapalooza to Coachella.

In 2011, MGMT performed an original piece of music at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City to accompany a retrospective of the artist Maurizio Catalan and in 2012 they performed with the legendary Joshua Light Show at NYU’s Skirball Center.

In 2023, the band played Oracular Spectacular in full at Just Like Heaven festival in Los Angeles, complete with paper mache versions of Andrew and Ben, a children’s choir, and old footage.