{"id":27606,"date":"2018-04-13T19:21:29","date_gmt":"2018-04-13T19:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artzealous.com\/?p=27606"},"modified":"2018-04-13T19:23:38","modified_gmt":"2018-04-13T19:23:38","slug":"public-art-funds-spring-2018-annual-benefit-event-honors-ai-wei-wei","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/public-art-funds-spring-2018-annual-benefit-event-honors-ai-wei-wei\/","title":{"rendered":"Public Art Fund&#8217;s Spring 2018 Annual Benefit Event Honors Ai Wei Wei"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last night, April 12, 2018, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.publicartfund.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Public Art Fund<\/a> celebrated its Annual Spring Benefit at Metropolitan West and raised an astounding $1.4\u00a0million dollars to support its public art projects. The evening honored preeminent artist and human rights activist\u00a0Ai Weiwei. The evening was peppered with artists such as\u00a0Doug Aitken, Tauba Auerbach, and David Horvitz<b>,<\/b>\u00a0who had their works on display for the auction.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-27609\" src=\"http:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/BFA_23804_2865511-e1523646020496.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The evening kicked off with cocktails followed by a 415-person seated dinner by Bite New York and a\u00a0special film honoring Ai Weiwei&#8217;s many contributions to the field of art and humanity. Guests were then treated to an after-party with\u00a0Thai\u00a0rolled ice cream, Champagne\u00a0Bombs, and music by dynamic artworld\u00a0DJ,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/artzealous.com\/30-under-30ish-part-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">April Hunt<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-27608\" src=\"http:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/BFA_23804_2865492-e1523646161700.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"599\" height=\"749\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>One of the many highlights of the evening were three new artist projects\u00a0in which guests were invited to partake in during the cocktail hour and the After Party.\u00a0Christopher Chiappa\u00a0had people ducking for cover as guests were invited to participate in his egg-themed bean-bag toss, where winners had a chance to win and take home a meticulously crafted plaster fried egg sculpture by the artist.\u00a0Hannah Whitaker\u2019s individual and group portraits that the artist photographed herself that guests were able to take home digitally.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_27611\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27611\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-27611\" src=\"http:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/BFA_23804_2865658-e1523646100482.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"728\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-27611\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"color: #999999;\">Krusten Joy Watts, Shama Rahman, Emily Havens, Musemo Handahu<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Our favorite of the evening was Nathan Mabry\u2019s\u00a0Duchamp-inspired prize wheel based on the artist\u2019s seminal 1913 readymade &#8220;Bicycle Wheel,&#8221; in which a\u00a0Marcel-Duchamp look-alike. Guests spun the wheel for a chance to win Duchampian themed prizes such as an\u00a0R. Mutt Hat, Golden Snow Shovel, \u201cUrinal Cake\u201d Cookies, Nude Descending a Staircase Clock, Mona Lisa Moustache, and a Selfie with Duchamp.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Guests included \u200b<span class=\"m_3448627650858508581gmail-m_1826344193386726551gmail-m_-2815481449520532411gmail-m_-4944086170902441890gmail-m_-3820887675948372432gmail-im\">Cynthia Rowley,\u00a0Mo Rocca,\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"m_3448627650858508581gmail-m_1826344193386726551gmail-m_-2815481449520532411gmail-m_-4944086170902441890gmail-m_-3820887675948372432gmail-im\">M<\/span>ary Boone,\u00a0Paula Cooper,\u00a0Jeffrey Deitch,\u00a0Paul Kasmin, and\u00a0Nicholas Logsdail\u00a0Ugo Rondinone, Xaviera Simmons, Hank Willis Thomas,\u00a0and\u00a0B. Wurtz.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>If you were unable to attend the event, you can still support the Public Art Fund by clicking <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicartfund.org\/support\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #999999;\"><em>photos \/\/ Zach Hilty\/BFA.com<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last night, April 12, 2018, the Public Art Fund celebrated its Annual Spring Benefit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":27607,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,23,21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27606"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}