The Sold-Out Dallas Contemporary Gala Was a Sumptuous Ode to the City’s Creatives
Inside the Always-Eventful Art World Fête
BY Caitlin Clark // 10.03.23Carolina Alvarez-Mathies (photo by Exploredinary for Dallas Contemporary)
There’s a notable lack of pretense at the Dallas Contemporary. It’s a quality that lends itself to the non-collecting institution’s cutting-edge reputation in the art world. It surely helped lure in contemporary artist and activist Shepard Fairey, who hosted his first Texas solo exhibition at the 37,000-square-foot industrial building in the Dallas Design District in 2022. It was also evident throughout every moment of the 2023 Dallas Contemporary Gala, a fabulously unfussy affair where the substance was often intentional style.
Guests were welcomed with shots of chilled LALO tequila into the Design District museum’s deep blue world — a jewel-toned nod to the Contemporary’s sapphire anniversary (45). The good folks from Midnight Rambler slung inventive cocktails as guests perused the pieces up for auction, which included works by Sarah Awad, Nikki Maloof, Trevor Paglen, Pedro Reyes, Sarah Miska, Alex Katz, and Eduardo Sarabia.
Natural floral installations by Jackson Durham dotted the gala landscape, while a large-scale projection of one of Tramaine Townsend’s ethereal dance films enveloped seated dinner guests. Newly anointed Dallas Contemporary Executive Chair Carolina Alvarez-Mathies kicked off dinner with a speech acknowledging the museum’s previous directors, many of whom were in attendance. “The full Dallas Contemporary team and I have not forgotten that the imaginative work we do now to move this museum forward – from exhibitions to education to programming – is because of the work you did in the decades before us,” she shared surrounded by Durham’s stunning florals.
The evening was presented by Sewell Automotive and Headington Companies, the latter of which provided dinner: a trio of unique dishes from Tango Room, Sassetta, and the soon-to-reopen Mirador. Co-chairs Jacquelin Sewell Atkinson, William Atkinson, Brandon Maxwell, and Jordan Jones Munoz took the stage to introduce the live auction, which helped raise over $1.6 million for the Dallas Contemporary.
Post-dinner, DJ Sober spun vinyls, LILKOOL projected trippy floral animations, and the people watching (somehow) got even better as more guests trickled in for the after party. After all, the Contemporary doesn’t call for Dallas’ typical gala garb — the sometimes laid-back but often over-the-top fashions are additional works of art.
The evening was a who’s who of Dallas and its art world. Peruse the slideshow above this story to relive the 2023 Dallas Contemporary Gala.
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