On Monday night Vanity Fair hosted its second annual kickoff event with Art Basel at the Four Seasons George V, that hulking castle of a nearly century-old hotel that has some of the most expensive suites on earth. The night before the fair opens is typically a busy one, with small private dinners hosted by art dealers and museum directors dotting the town, but the cocktail party managed to get a nice cross section of folks who swung by before or after dinner obligations.
Naturally, those mentioned in the recent Art Issue managed to turn up. Over in one corner Shaun Caley Regen, the founder of one of LA’s most prominent galleries, Regen Projects, was talking to the influential collector and CAA agent Beth Swofford, with Château Shatto’s Olivia Barrett right nearby, along with Bridget Donahue and Hannah Hoffman of the newly formed Hoffman Donahue—a scene straight out of a feature in the issue mapping out the Art Galaxy, which has a special sector called Planet Hollywood.
And then there were the museum directors. Max Hollein, director of The Met, was there talking to Loïc Gouzer, the founder of the one-lot auction app Fair Warning. Dia director Jessica Morgan came in triumphant: She curated one of the hottest shows in town, “Minimal,” at the Bourse de Commerce, the private museum founded by François Pinault. Klaus Biesenbach, director of Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie, arrived a bit on the late end (he told me he had to go to a Patti Smith concert), and Scott Rothkopf of The Whitney was there on the late end too.
Also around was Naomi Beckwith, the Guggenheim chief creator who is also prepping the much anticipated Documenta in Kassel, Germany, in 2027. To that end, she chatted with critic Jason Farago about the best places to eat in Kassel—Farago mentioned that the late Okwui Enwezor once took a New York Times reporter to an Italian spot in town called La Frasca, but he couldn’t verify its quality himself.
