Celebrate Socrates: 35th Anniversary Benefit Party

Proof of vaccination OR a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours of the event, along with a photo ID are required for admission to this event. Proof of vaccination may include CDC Vaccination Card (or photo), NYC COVID Safe app, New York State Excelsior Pass, or an official immunization record from outside the U.S. Masks are recommended at all times at the event, except when eating and/or drinking.

Thursday, September 23, 2021

Dinner & Cocktails

Long Island City, NY

Honoring

Tom Finkelpearl, Arts Leader

Tom Finkelpearl worked as a consultant to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation 2020-2021, advising on their funding priorities in New York City, while initiating a book on the future of museums in collaboration with Pablo Helguera. For six years he served as the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (2014-2020). In this role he oversaw city funding for nonprofit arts organizations across the five boroughs and directed the cultural policy for the City of New York. Finkelpearl served as Executive Director of the Queens Museum for twelve years starting in 2002, overseeing a capital project that doubled the museum’s size and positioning the organization as a center for social engagement in nearby communities. He also held leadership positions at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and the Department of Cultural Affairs Percent for Art program. He has published two books: Dialogues in Public Art (MIT Press, 2000) and What We Made: Conversations on Art and Social Cooperation (Duke University Press, 2013). He received a BA from Princeton University (1979) and an MFA from Hunter College (1983).

Jeffrey Gibson, Artist

Jeffrey Gibson is an interdisciplinary artist based in Hudson, New York. His artworks make reference to various aesthetic and material histories rooted in Indigenous cultures of the Americas, and in modern and contemporary subcultures. Gibson is a recipient of a 2019 MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant.

Gibson’s previous exhibitions include, Jeffrey Gibson, ‘LIKE A HAMMER,’ organized by the Denver Art Museum, and ‘This Is The Day,’ organized by The Wellin Museum. Other notable solo exhibitions include: ‘The Anthropophagic Effect’ (2019) The New Museum, New York; ‘Look How Far We’ve Come!’ (2017), Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee; ‘Jeffrey Gibson: Speak to Me,’ (2017), Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, Oklahoma City; and ‘A Kind of Confession’ (2016), Savannah College of Art and Design Museum, Savannah.

Emcee

Shaun Leonardo, Board Member & Artist

Shaun Leonardo’s multidisciplinary work negotiates societal expectations of manhood, namely definitions surrounding black and brown masculinities, along with its notions of achievement, collective identity, and experience of failure. His performance practice, anchored by his work in Assembly — a diversion program for system-impacted youth at the arts nonprofit Recess, where he is Co-Director — is participatory and invested in a process of embodiment.
Leonardo is a Brooklyn-based artist from Queens, New York City. He received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, is a recipient of support from Creative Capital, Guggenheim Social Practice, Art for Justice and A Blade of Grass, and was recently profiled in the New York Times and CNN. His work has been featured at The Guggenheim Museum, the High Line, and New Museum, with a solo exhibition, The Breath of Empty Space, recently presented at MICA, MASS MoCA and The Bronx Museum.

elcleonardo.com

DJ April Hunt is the founder and CEO of sparkplugPR, and also an accomplished art-world DJ. April has spun for benefits at the Public Art Fund, The High Line, and even at the house party Kehinde Wiley threw to unveil his portrait of former President Barack Obama.

Check out her SoundCloud here.

DJ MX Oops is a multimedia performance artist focused on the intersection of urban arts and consciousness studies; rapping and dancing within audiovisual installations. A certified yoga instructor (500hr RYT) and practitioner of Thai Yoga Massage, they are also trained in various forms of energy healing. Their work has toured Kenya, China, Russia, the Netherlands, and has been presented in various NYC venues.

GUADALUPE MARAVILLA
Abuelx Stones

Aluminum and Bismuth
Unique Edition of 12 5 A.P.’s

Price: $4,000 ($6,000 post-Benefit) Maravilla’s Abuelx Stones fuse casts gourds with amorphous coral-like forms, each pair in a unique embrace, clutch, entanglement or enmeshment. Created by the same recycled aluminum casting technique that Maravilla first employed for Planeta Abuelx at Socrates Sculpture Park, the casts leave traces of the aluminum’s molten state. This serves as a reminder of the conditions of flow that surround us, from sound waves to the water cycles that flow through the environment and through our bodies. Melted bismuth crystals, a mineral that the artist used for treatment of his stomach cancer, embellish each Stone, highlighting the healing properties of metals.

2021 Benefit Committee (list in formation, draft a/o 9.16.21)

BENEFIT HOST COMMITTEE CO-CHAIRS:

Alison Saar
Joel Shapiro

LEADER

Bloomberg Philanthropies
Paula Cooper
Mark di Suvero
Robert. F. Goldrich, The Leon Levy Foundation
Agnes Gund

BENEFACTOR

Alessandra DiGiusto, Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation
Maxine & Stuart Frankel Foundation
Plant Specialists
Joel Shapiro & Ellen Phelan
Anonymous

PATRON

Katherine Farley & Jerry Speyer
Liz, Steven, & Elissa Goldstone
Kaufman Astoria Studios
Jill & Peter Kraus
Richard & Ronay Menschel
Ivana Mestrovic
Deidrea Miller, Brunswick Group
P.P.O.W Gallery
Brooke Kamin Rapaport & Richard A. Rapaport
The Ronald & Jo Carole Lauder Foundation
Richard & Clara Serra
Zeitz Foundation
Anonymous

SUPPORTER

Art for Justice Fund
Astoria West, Cape Advisors, & Pioneer
Sarah Arison & Thomas Wilhelm
Jamie Bennett
Jane Benson & Lucas Cooper
Gerald Blitstein
Michelle Coffey
David & Vivien Collens
Richard Gluckman & Tiffany Bell
Thelma Golden
Larissa Harris
Maren Hassinger
John Hatfield & Amy Wolf
Michael Herz & Jean Roiphe
NYC Ferry
James Ottaway, Jr.
Roberts Projects, Los Angeles
Alison Saar & Thomas Leeser
Sikkema Jenkins & Co
Storm King Art Center
Manny & Jackie Silverman
Eugenie Tsai & Tom Finkelpearl

FRIENDS

Paola Antonelli
Nevah Assang
Ilan Averbuch
Alice Aycock
Katie Denny Horowitz
Stephanie Diamond
Lucy Freeman Sandler
Francis Greenburger
David Humphrey
Shaun Leonardo & McKendree Key
Helen Lessick
Ryan Max
Julia Meltzer
Margaret S. Morton
Mike Pratt
Adam Weinberg

SPECIAL THANKS

Hunters Point Wine & Spirits
Lyft
NYC Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer
SingleCut Beersmiths
Spacetime C.C.