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Community philanthropy – New York Social Diary
Monday, March 27, 2023. Sometimes sunny, sometimes rainy, otherwise grey skies and temperatures in the high 50s, mid-60s, but cold in New York on these first days of Spring. However, the forsythia are now in bloom in Carl Schurz Park, and the buds on the tree in front of my windows are just beginning to show — through a binoculars — tiny green and dark red tips sprouting up from the barren branches. Next week they’ll be taller and soon the green of leaves will be bursting, reminding of the revelation of life.
This week on our Party Pictures pages, we continue to have a look at another aspect of philanthropies; beginning with a cultural philanthropy that is almost like a religion to its supporters, providing pleasurable doses of nature’s beauty and reality, and that is —
Long House Reserve presented their inaugural Larsen Lecture with architect and designer Kulapat Yantrasast at Christie’s last week. Christie’s Deputy Chairman John Hays welcomed nearly 90 guests with a toast to his longtime friend, the director of LongHouse Reserve, who he called “the magnificent Carrie Barrett, who I’ve known going on five decades, a curator who is so great to all of us in the American field.”
Those gathered included LongHouse president Nina Gillman, president emerita Dianne Benson, board members Sherri Donghia, Derick T. George, Anne Erni, Gael Towey, Emma Clurman, Deborah Nevins, and Peter H. Olsen as well as Abby Bangser, Ted Farris, Ronnie and Alan Fisher, Marina Kellen French, Susan Gutfreund, Sharon King Hoge, Michele Gerber Klein, Alison Levasseur, Faith Popcorn, Barbara Tober, and many more.
Once guests were seated, Carrie Barrett took the podium, and thanked Christie’s.
“We launched this Larson Lecture, honoring our founder, Jack Lenor Larsen, a designer, collector, artist, and maker. He lived in America on both coasts, traveled in Europe, and saw Africa and Asia on enumerable visits.
“Larsen’s textiles are in the permanent collections of every major museum. He designed with Frank Lloyd Wright and Arrow Ceremony architects. When he began, he worked with batik, mylar, nylon, and terry cloth, just as he worked at Lever House and Swaziland. Somewhere along the line, he taught Joan Crawford how to thread a loom.
“He launched his own textile business in 1952, and 40 years later, he built Long House on 16 acres in East Hampton. He made it a case study to exemplify a creative approach to life. He believed that the experience of art in a living space made it more meaningful than art in museums or in media …. Jack made things, collected things, and arranged them in the most exquisite way.”
Then, Alexandra Munroe, director of Curatorial Affairs at the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, and longtime friend of Jack Lenor Larsen, introduced the evening’s speaker, architect Kulapat Yantrasast, Senior Curator of Asian Art and Senior Advisor for Global Arts at the Solomon Guggenheim Museum, and LongHouse board member.
Kulapat thanked Alexandra warmly and then dazzled the audience with his bold vision of design. He began by describing the traditions of Ise, the Shinto shrine that was the inspiration for LongHouse.
“It is a fascinating thing to think Ise, the most sacred site, its hundred percent exists because humans believe in that continuity. Because of that, what is remaining is actually not the building, it’s the craftsmanship.”
LongHouse Reserve is a 16-acre sculpture garden and natural sanctuary located in East Hampton, NY. As many as 60 works of art, including sculptures by Buckminster Fuller, Yoko Ono, and Willem de Kooning can be viewed in the LongHouse gardens, which are open to the public from April to December with changing exhibitions each year.
The gardens serve as a living case study of the interaction between plants and people in the 21st century. LongHouse’s goal is to expand the imagination and appeal to visitors of all ages, with an education program providing students with docent-led school tours, online materials, internship activities, family-activity guides, and the LongHouse Scholarship Award. For more information see: https://longhouse.org
More experiencing of art. New York’s Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) celebrated the opening of two highly anticipated exhibitions for Spring.
Generation Paper: A Fashion Phenom of the 1960s — on view through August 27th — showcases dozens of rare paper garments and accessories. Surfacing, a little-known chapter in design history, combined bold graphic design with the era’s space-age experimentation; this enormously popular fashion trend ushered in a new wave of material innovation.
With a focus on the use of clay as a tool for critique and satire, Funk You Too! Humor and Irreverence in Ceramic Sculpture (also on view through August 27th) brings together historical Funk ceramics with the work of contemporary artists who are expanding on Funk’s legacy of humor, subversion, and expressive figuration.
MAD’s Chair Michele Cohen and Nanette L. Laitman Director Tim Rogers were joined by MAD Curators Elissa Auther, Barbara Paris Gifford, and Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy to welcome guests including Jennifer and Dory Altmann, Joann Blecker, Erik Bottcher, John Kern, Barb Rosenberg, Sally and Peter Saul, Maryn Schiffmiller, Barbara Tober (MAD Chair Emerita), and artists Genesis Belanger, Almendra Bertoni, Elizabeth Glaessner, Nikki Maloof, Yvette Mayorga, and Didi Rojas.
MAD Director of Education Lydia Brawner introduced a curator-moderated conversation with some of the artists from Funk You Too!, including Natalia Arbelaez, Sharif Farrag, Salvador Jimenez-Flores, and Alake Shilling.
Meanwhile, down in Palm Beach, more than 150 guests attended a reception at Coe + Co Gallery to celebrate the opening of “SERENITY” — a series of previously unseen photographs by internationally renowned photographer, Christophe von Hohenberg.
Hohenberg generously donated a signed print Dogs Social Distancing, valued at $8,500, to benefit the Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League. The silent auction will continue through the duration of the exhibit which ends April 2nd.
Among those attending the event were Norton Director Ghislain d’Humieres; Michel Witmer, Priscilla Rattazzi, Baroness Jeanne von Oppenheim, Burt Minkoff, Serena Woodward, Katie Carpenter, Robin Baker Leacock, Benton Bohannan, Mercedes de Guardiola, Primi Chang, Chris Schlank, Alison Newton, Helmut Koller, Catherine Adler, Tom Dagostino, Kim Renk, Jean Shafiroff, Victoria Wyman, Yelitza Karolyi, Francisco ’Paco’ and Susanna Gil, and Emilio Pedroni.
Among those attending the event were Norton Director Ghislain d’Humieres; Michel Witmer, Priscilla Ratazzi, Baroness Jeanne von Oppenheim, Burt Minkoff, Serena Woodward, Katie Carpenter, Robin Baker Leacock, Benton Bohannan, Mercedes de Guardiola, Primi Chang, Chris Schlank, Alison Newton, Helmut Koller, Catherine Adler, Tom Dagostino, Kim Renk, Jean Shafiroff, Victoria Wyman, Yelitza Karolyi, Francisco ’Paco’ and Susanna Gil and Emilio Pedroni.
And back home in little ole Manhattan, Marc Rosen hosted a cocktail party highlighting the Lenox Hill Hospital House Calls program and its director, Dr. Christopher Paredes. You never heard of the House Calls program? Neither had I. It is very important for anyone to know about.
Marc had come to know Dr. Paredes who provided medical care for his wife, Arlene Dahl, in their home at the end of her life. Grateful for the care and comfort the doctor provided, Marc invited friends to the Explorers Club to hear about the unique healthcare program and how it can help elderly, bedridden patients.
The reception was generously funded by David Mack, a member at large on the Northwell Health Board of Trustees. Guests enjoyed champagne and hors d’oeuvres in the library and then moved to the historic Clark room to hear remarks from Marc as well, Dr. Daniel Baker, the executive director of Lenox Hill Hospital, and Dr. Paredes.
The remarks ended with a lively Q&A, in which guests learned about the importance of expanding home-based primary care for Manhattan’s aging population. Among those attending were Yanna Avis, Glenda Bailey, Drew Butler, Susan Gutfreund, Gale Hayman, Roberta and Arthur Houghton, Ian Jarvis, Elizabeth Kabler, Charles Mirotznik, Will Roseman, Jamie Saakvitne, Sana Sabbagh, Kathy Sloane, Elizabeth Sobieski, Saundra Whitney and Victoria Wyman.
Several guests from Lenox Hill Hospital and Northwell Health also joined in the evening’s festivities including hospital leaders, philanthropists, board members, and grateful family members whose lives had been touched by the House Calls program.
The Lenox Hill Hospital House Calls program provides home-based primary care to medically-complex seniors who have difficulty traveling to a doctor’s office.
Led by Dr. Paredes, patients are cared for by a team of physicians, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, social workers, and other clinicians, and receive coordinated care similar to what they would receive in a clinical setting.
The program also provides patients and their caregivers with access to urgent clinical care 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Established in 2014, the House Calls program has been successful in delivering high-quality medical care to vulnerable seniors, while improving patient outcomes, reducing healthcare costs, and alleviating pain and suffering by preventing unnecessary emergency department visits and hospitalizations.
