CELEBRATE SOCRATES: 2022 Annual Benefit Party

Thursday, September 22, 2022
6:30 – 9:30 PM

Sunset Cocktails, Dinner & Dancing
At Spacetime CC, Mark di Suvero’s waterfront studio
Long Island City, Queens NY 

Limited Artist Edition for Sale
Alison Saar
Umbra, 2022

Co-Emcee’s
Deidrea Miller, Christie’s America
Myles Miller, NBC 4 New York

DJ Vinyl Richie

TICKET SALES ARE CLOSED (a/o 9/22/22, 5:00pm)

Honoring

STUART MATCH SUNA

Co-Founder, Silvercup Studios

Stuart Match Suna co-founded Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, Queens with his brother, Alan Suna. Well known for its iconic sign visible from the East River, Silvercup Studios has been home to famed television productions, dozens of major motion pictures, and hundreds of commercials. Trained as an architect and experienced as a real estate developer, Suna is also a founding board member and Chair Emeritus of the Hamptons International Film Festival. He also serves on the boards of Museum of the Moving Image, the Children’s Tumor Foundation, and Socrates Sculpture Park, where he served as President of the Board from 2004-2022.

PAUL RAMÍREZ JONAS

Artist

Paul Ramírez Jonas was born in Pomona, California in 1965 and raised in Honduras. Over the last twenty-five years Ramírez Jonas has created works that range from large-scale public installations and monumental sculptures to intimate drawings, performances and videos. Through his practice he seeks to challenge definitions of art and the public, engineering active audience participation and exchange.

His selected solo exhibitions include Museo Jumex, Mexico City; The New Museum, NYC; Pinacoteca do Estado, Sao Paulo; The Aldrich Contemporary Museum, Connecticut; The Blanton Museum, Texas; a survey at Ikon Gallery (UK) and Cornerhouse (UK) in 2004, and a 25 year survey at the Contemporary Art Museum Houston in 2017. Selected group exhibitions at P.S.1; the Brooklyn Museum; The Whitechapel (UK); Irish Museum of Modern Art (Ireland); and Kunsthaus Zurich. He participated in the 1st Johannesburg Biennale; 1st Seoul Biennial; 6th Shanghai Biennial; 28th Sao Paulo Biennial; 53rd Venice Biennial and 7th and 10th Bienal do Mercosul. In 2010 his Key to the City project was presented by Creative Time in cooperation with the City of New York and in 2022 with Fierce and Birmingham 2022 Festival in Birmingham, UK. In 2016 his Public Trust project was presented by Now & There in Boston.

He is a Professor and Art Department Chair, at the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University and is represented by the Galeria Nara Roesler in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and New York.

BALLET FOLKLÓRICO MEXICANO DE NUEVA YORK

Community Organization

Founded in 1983, Ballet Folklórico Mexicano de Nueva York (BFMNY) is dedicated to preserving and encouraging Mexican folkloric dance through performance and education. Based in Elmhurst and led by Esmeralda Hidalgo, they have performed at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Museum of Natural History, Madison Square Garden, and Manhattan’s Town Hall. The group performs folkloric dances from different regions of Mexico wearing colorful traditional costumes. They also seek to educate the public about these dances and the cultural customs of Mexico.

Limited Artist Edition for Sale

Umbra, 2022. Full view, Detail view.
Courtesy of Alison Saar and LA Louver Gallery; Image by Flying Saucer Press, Inc.

Alison Saar
Umbra, 2022
Cast iron and enamel ink
16.3 x 10 x 1.75 inches

Edition of 12 with 5 A.P.’s
Created exclusively for the Celebrate Socrates: 2022 Benefit Party
Price: $4,000
Price after Benefit: $6,000

Please contact Julia Metro, Director of Development & Communications at jm@socratessculpturepark.org / 718-956-1819 x102 to reserve.

PRESS
The Art Newspaper, September 22, 2022. “Out of the frying pan and into the future: new Alison Saar limited edition work hints at both the domestic and the celestial.”

ABOUT THE EDITION

Alison Saar’s Umbra presents a striking three-color image on the back of a cast iron pan. The visage of a Black woman crowned with an afro is in turn ringed by a second circle, a burst of white light. The representation suggests both a celestial event (a solar or lunar eclipse) and the presence of a haloed spiritual being. This duality echoes through its sculptural shape–are we seeing the bottom of a frying pan or a reflection in a hand mirror? Like apparitions of the Virgin Mary that miraculously appear in mundane, Saar finds the magic in the scenes and the stuff of everyday life. Originally rendered in woodcut then transferred to silkscreen, the prints preserve blocky high contrast of a technique that Saar relates to her sculptural practice of wood carving. The use of the circular form and gendered tool echoes Saar’s work Fanning the Fire, presented at Socrates in 1988. Printed by Flying Saucer Press, Inc.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Alison Saar was born in Los Angeles, California. She studied art and art history at Scripps College and received an MFA from the Otis Art Institute. Saar works across media from prints to assemblage to bronze, with a focus on representing the history of the African diaspora and black female subjectivity. She is a force in public art and has produced many monuments including the Monument to the Great Northern Migration (1996), Chicago, IL; Swing Low, the Harriet Tubman Memorial (2007) New York City; Embodied (2014) Los Angeles County Hall of Justice, Los Angeles, CA; and To Sit A While (2022) a monument to playwright and journalist Lorraine Hansberry to be installed in Chicago. Saar has received multiple awards and honors including the United States Artist Fellowship, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, and two National Endowment Fellowships. She has exhibited at galleries and museums, including the Hirschorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her art is represented in the collections of the Baltimore Art Museum, the Modern Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among numerous others. Her work was presented at Socrates in 1988-89 and she joined the Park’s board in 2018. She is represented by LA Louver Gallery.

Co-Emcee’s

DEIDREA MILLER

Head of Communications
Christie’s Americas

Deidrea Miller was appointed Head of Communications for Christie’s in October 2021. She most recently served as director at Brunswick Arts, where she advised clients including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark. Before that, she was deputy communications director to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, overseeing external relations for 24 city agencies, including cultural affairs, economic development, and media and entertainment.

MYLES MILLER

Journalist
NBC 4 New York

Myles Miller is a duPont-Columbia, Edward R. Murrow and Emmy® Award-winning journalist who covers crime, the courts and general assignment news for WNBC-TV. He joined NBC’s flagship station in October 2019.

Miller was a key component of NBC 4 New York’s award-winning COVID-19 coverage, honored in January, 2021 with the prestigious Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for “creat(ing) a 360 view in real time of the coronavirus pandemic, with courageous and thorough reporting on the virus’s explosion in New York City.” The duPont has long been recognized as the broadcast, documentary and on-line equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize, also awarded by Columbia University.

Prior to joining NBC 4 New York, Miller served as deputy press secretary at the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) and as a senior advisor to the Fire Commissioner.

Miller started his career at the New York Daily News, in middle school, where as a part of a summer program and later as an intern, he covered city politics and government for their suburban newspapers, Bronx Boro, Queens and Brooklyn News. Throughout his career in journalism, his writing has also been featured in the New York Post, FOXNews.com, The Daily Caller and Women’s Wear Daily. He is a member of Investigative Reporters and Editors, the National Association of Black Journalists, the New York Press Club and the National Forensics League.

Spacetime CC

Spacetime is the studio of the artist Mark di Suvero. The buildings were built in the 1920s and the 1930s and were originally used to unload and store bricks that were manufactured up the Hudson River. By the time di Suvero saw the structures in 1980 they were close to being condemned. He began work to repair the buildings and immediately invited other artists to come work in the space and use his tools. Artists such as Ursula von Rydingsvard, Linda Fleming and Meg Webster made work in the space under the auspices of his Athena Foundation. Five years later, di Suvero and Enrico Martignoni applied to New York City to lease the land that became Socrates Sculpture Park. Artists continue to have studio spaces at Spacetime to this day.

Learn more about Spacetime CC here: https://www.spacetimecc.com

2022 Benefit Committee (list in formation, a/o Sept 16, 2022)

LEADER
Agnes Gund
Bloomberg Philanthropies
Mark di Suvero
Silvercup Studios

BENEFACTOR
Con Edison
Paula Cooper
Maxine & Stuart Frankel Foundation
Robert F. Goldrich
Michelle Coffey, Lambent Foundation
Louise & Leonard Riggio
Joel Shapiro & Ellen Phelan
Harriet & Frank Stella
Peter & Helen Warwick

PATRON
David Baron
The Durst Organization
Katherine Farley & Jerry Speyer
The Ronald & Jo Carole Lauder Foundation
Ivana Mestrovic
Richard & Ronay Menschel
Daniel Pelsinger
Zeitz Foundation

SUPPORTERS
David & Vivien Collens
Lucas Cooper & Jane Benson
Richard Gluckman & Tiffany Bell
Liz, Steven, & Elissa Goldstone
Sally Gottesman
Jane Hait & Justin Beal
John Hatfield & Amy Wolf
Amy Hau & Fred Hansen
Susan Inglett Gallery
Kaufman Astoria Studios
Jill & Peter Kraus
Galerie Lelong & Co.
Peter & Anna Levin
Dorothy Lichtenstein
Glenn Ligon
Deidrea Miller, Christie’s Americas
Nara Roesler
NYC Ferry
Plaxall
Rockrose
Silberman Zaretsky PC
Manny & Jackie Silverman

FRIENDS
Kim Brizzolara
Veselko Buntic
Rebecca Cochran
Diane M. Coffey
Suzy Delvalle
Hugh J. Freund
Nayla Hadchiti
Jason Hayes, Langan
Richard Horvitz
Lisa Le Feuvre
Shaun Leonardo & McKendree Key
Ivan Lustig
Martin Margulies & Hermina Seiden
Derick Melander
Jessica Morgan
Constance Mortell
Victoria Newhouse
Jim Ottaway Jr.
Noni Pratt
Brooke Kamin Rapaport
Rise Light & Power
Josh Sapan
John P. Stern
Sally Tallant
Tasende Gallery
Adam Weinberg

SPECIAL THANKS
Guadalupe Maravilla
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, Jr.
Commissioner Manuel Castro, NYC Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs
Spacetime C.C.
SingleCut Beersmiths
DJ Vinyl Richie

2022 STEERING COMMITTEE
Robert F. Goldrich
Amy Hau
Ivana Mestrovic
Deidrea Miller