An Inside Look at LACMA’s Star-Studded Art + Film Gala 2023

During cocktail hour, an art advisor tried to point me toward “a woman” with a train on her dress so grand, it was parting the crowd like the Red Sea. Ladies and gentlemen, he was talking about Kim Kardashian.

This year, much like every year, Lauren Halsey and Monique McWilliams take the non-existent award for best dressed. But getting ready for this Gucci-sponsored gala is a different ordeal for everyone. “You can either have a fashion crisis and not enjoy the night or not have a fashion crisis, come as you are, and enjoy the evening,” said LAXART director Hamza Walker; he arrived in a smart set of J. Crew tech pants he had been wearing throughout the day. “I’m the exact opposite,” said Brendan Fernandes, who was dressed in Thom Brown. “I planned this for a week.”

“People crying out in pain anywhere in the world can be heard here in LA,” said Michael Govan, threading the delicate needle of addressing global events. “Through dark times like these, I hope we can also feel the tremendous counter force of love that resonates in this room.” He also had a positive announcement concerning LACMA’s new Peter Zumthor building: “We’re now 70 percent finished”—a full 20 percent more finished than this time last year.

At the power table, Squid Games star Lee Jung-jae sat next to J. Lo (pictured here with Eva Chow in the middle) who sat next to Ben Affleck. Brad Pitt sat next to him, and across sat Leonardo Di Caprio. Gallerist Kibum Kim of Commonwealth & Council named Lee as his starstruck encounter of the evening, a moment that was eclipsed when Kim found himself standing next to Pitt in the loo.

The whole Hilton gang, including Carter Reum, Paris Hilton, Kathy Hilton, and Richard Hilton, was at the event.

Billie Eilish, pictured here with Kirsten Dunst, was hands down the most popular girl at the party; she was the celebrity other celebrities asked to take pictures with.

Jonas Wood named Eilish as the celebrity he was most starstruck by. “That’s what I was going to say!” added Shio Kusaka. They were the second-best-dressed art world couple at the party.

“I remember studying Judy in school in textbooks,” Eva Longoria said in her speech honoring Judy Baca. In 1974, the artist had organized the City of Los Angeles Mural Program, a support system that provided hundreds of children in L.A. an artistic outlet, meals and psychological counseling as they painted historical imagery along the walls of the L.A. river.  “When Michael called me and he said ‘Will you give this honor to Judy Baca?’ I almost fainted,” Longoria added. “It’s one of the biggest honors of my lifetime.”

“What better honor than to be introduced by the ultimate chingona,” Baca said. Her current solo exhibition at the museum, “Painting in the River of Angels: Judy Baca and The Great Wall,” is on view through June 2.

“I was raised in Marin County, just about San Francisco, where we were taught that Los Angeles was magnetic north for narcissists and sociopaths,” said David Fincher, pictured here with Andrew Garfield. “The stranger truth is I have met more capital A artists in Los Angeles than any other place I’ve ever lived or worked.”

Awol Erizku and A$AP Rocky, wearing Gucci, strike a pose at the 2023 LACMA Art+Film Gala.

When I told American artist Paul Mpagi Sepuya the after-dinner performer was going to be Lenny Kravitz, he audibly gasped. “I mean, he’s ageless!” Sepuya said, plus descriptions including “incredibly sexy.” It’s difficult to express in words the power Kravitz had over this crowd; once that twangy bassline of his 1998 single “Fly Away” hit, everyone started dancing. “He’s ageless!” Sarah Levine of Pace Gallery turned to me and said. Seeing Paris Hilton singing along to “American Woman,” I realized the rare quality that makes top-notch event entertainment: having at least four or five absolute banger hit singles that literally everybody loves but rarely thinks about. That is Kravitz’s magic.