Alfonso Cuarón and Betye Saar have a date with LACMA on Nov. 2 — and it’s a big one.
The Oscar-winning filmmaking and the Los Angeles artist will be feted at the ninth annual Art+Film Gala, the museum’s A-list fundraiser presented once again by Gucci and co-chaired by Eva Chow and Leonardo DiCaprio. For the second year, additional support for the gala is provided by Audi.
The event is always a high-profile stop not only for boldface names from the worlds of art and fashion, but also Hollywood stars, executives and creatives as well as L.A. elite. Proceeds from Art+Film go toward “underwriting LACMA’s initiative to make film more central to the museum’s curatorial programming, while also funding LACMA’s broader mission,” per the institution.
Related Stories
In breaking the news, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg director Michael Govan praised Saar as one of the most significant artists working today while hailing Cuarón’s storytelling expertise. “Born in Los Angeles and having sustained a career over seven decades here, Saar has only begun to receive the international acclaim her work deserves. LACMA has exhibited her work since 1972. This fall, we are thrilled to present Betye Saar: Call and Response, an exhibition that will reveal the artist’s sketchbooks, an important part of her creative process that has never before been shown publicly, and their relation to her finished works.”
He continued, “Cuarón tells beautiful and stirring stories of humanity and how we relate to one another, from his early films The Little Princess and Y Tu Mamá También to his recent work including Gravity and last year’s Roma, which was as personal as it was universal. Earlier this year LACMA exhibited stills from Roma that not only highlighted Cuarón’s incredible skill in pictorial composition, but also connected deeply and personally to so many museum visitors.”
He also delivered a nod to the changes afoot on LACMA’s section of Wilshire Boulevard where the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures inches closer to being complete while LACMA continues to raise funds and move forward with plans for a new museum design. He said: “This gala is a moment to honor the achievements of the moving image and to celebrate the strengthened dialogue between art and film in Los Angeles. This creative exchange will continue to grow stronger in the coming years with the opening of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and LACMA’s theater in its new building for the permanent collection.”
Cuarón is no stranger to the festivities after having attended last year’s event in support of honoree and friend Guillermo del Toro. The honor comes on the heels of a standout awards season run for his Netflix offering Roma, which won Academy Awards for directing and cinematography and for best foreign language film.
Since the 1960s, Saar’s work has reflected on African American identity, spirituality, gender and the connectedness between different cultures, per LACMA. The University of California grad’s work is included in the permanent collections of more than 80 museums, including — in addition to LACMA — the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
