Bash Compactor: Spring Fling
The rise of New Yorks creative class was in plain sight at the late-night portion of the Museum of Modern Arts Party in the Garden last week. You could tell just from the fashion: The paths around the garden were once runways for impeccably smooth-haired ladies in expensive cocktail dresses, looking to lure bankers and lawyers in dull suits. This year there were short shorts, plaid shirts, white jumpsuits, silver sneakers and one chic mini-turban. Architects, artists, actors, musicians and nonprofit executives had taken over the scene, filling every nook of the museums outdoor sculpture garden.
Thats what happens when you book the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to perform and entrust the rest of the party soundtrack to Mister Saturday Night (DJs Eamon Harkin and Justin Carter). Word got out (with the help of a promotion campaign in galleries) and the $100 tickets sold out weeks before the event. But that didnt keep Heather Magnum away. The fetching senior communications officer at Mercy Corps arrived two hours before the doors opened to snag one of the last 50 tickets released that night. She got in.
For Christine Sun Kim, the party was one of her last fabulous New York nights out before she heads to Bard for graduate school this summer. The former Lower Manhattan Cultural Council artist-in-residence, who is deaf, said she is studying sound art.
The band (Karen O and Nick Zinner sans drummer Brian Chase) performed their set acoustic, with backup from a string trio and Imaad Wasif on guitar. Introducing the bands hit Maps, Karen O, dressed in an Asian-inspired caftan mini by Christian Joy, gave a shout to all the late spring lovers in the crowd. I saw some, but the evening had a friendly, platonic vibethere were even a few pairs of exes.
We bought the tickets before we broke up, Teliza Adams explained, standing next to her ex, Preiti Sriratana. Longer broken up were Heimata Rutgers and Natasha Worsham, a unisex clothing designer who just graduated from Parsons. We went out in high school, Rutgers said.