On what felt like the first day of spring in New York Monday night, the New York Academy of Art hosted its annual Tribeca Ball, an art-filled night of cocktails, dinner, and creative exuberance. Entering 111 Franklin Street, there was a palpable buzz of artistic discovery as attendees greeted fellow art patrons and began exploring the six floors of the space. From the basement, all the way to the starred walls of the 5th floor with event-sponsor Van Cleef and Arpels’ installation showcasing black-clad models wearing decadent necklaces, the evening featured open studios from the Academy’s students, as well as live music, in progress figural artworks and a live model rendition of The Birth of Venus.
This year’s event honored Bob Colacello, former Warhol Factory regular, former editor of Interview and writer, who is also a large supporter of the New York Academy of Arts. We ran into Colacello as he was perusing the studios in the basement. Unsurprisingly, a few former members of the Factory circle came to support Colacello including TV Party legend and writer Glenn O’Brien, who we also spotted wandering through the studios.
The Factory crowd was certainly not the only superstars in attendance. From New York personalities such as Padma Lakshmi, Joan Rivers, Parker Posey, and Matt Lauer to gallerists Paul Kasmin and Allegra La Viola to major collectors such as the leather-clad designer Peter Marino, the Tribeca Ball was undoubtedly the event to attend for the New York art set.
Shockingly most of the excitement seemed not to come from the free-flowing cocktails and banter, but the enjoyment of discovering new talent. Walking from floor to floor, we found some fascinating artists, including Daniela Krachtt who merged abstraction and the figural, Elizabeth Barkey Glaessner who created surreal mixed media paintings and Nic Bandy who, while wearing a red-sequined cocktail dress, showed us his representations of drag queens, bears, and other gay cultural references.
After the cocktail reception finished and the more exclusive dinner began, we left in our light spring jacket content that the prospects of young artists can still draw an enthusiastic star-studded crowd.
