FOR decades, the Parrish Art Museum’s annual midsummer party has brought a surrealistically dressy scene to Southampton, N.Y. At last Saturday’s event, guests arrived as they always have, in important cars and designer gowns for pedestrians to ogle.
It was the last time it would happen this way. The museum is leaving the building it has occupied since 1898 to move to a new one in nearby Water Mill in November.
director, in a gallery full of the thin and tanned during cocktail hour. “Honor the past but look to the future.”
Or as they say in this bigger-is-better world: Next!
Even for a local art crowd that has been around awhile — including Dorothy Lichtenstein, Beth Rudin DeWoody, Ross Bleckner, Eric Fischl and Jennifer Bartlett — there was little interest in waxing nostalgic.
“I see these walls and feel they’re a part of me,” said Dorothea Rockburne, who had a show at the Parrish last summer. “But I’m excited about the new space.”
Marc Glimcher, the president of Pace Gallery in Manhattan and a Southampton resident, was excited, too.
“They got their priorities right, and the design and the setting are both absolutely appropriate,” he said. “This is the age of appropriateness, isn’t it?”
In design and investing, absolutely. But at a summertime fund-raiser, even one that up until about 15 years ago was black tie, appropriate is somewhat approximate.
Young bloggers swarmed strangers with graceless abandon. One posed with Christophe de Menil, the arts patron who designs clothes and costumes.
“Who is you’re favorite designer?” she asked.
“Alexander McQueen,” Ms. De Menil answered. “And also myself.”
Guests showed up to pose for paparazzi only to depart quickly for other parties. Men in suits, jeans and river sandals (and one in a top hat) mingled with women in everything from gowns to hot pants.
Chuck Close, one of the artists to be honored at the event, looked startlingly casual in a black cap and a suit made from African-print cloth. His supersized levitating wheelchair with giant tires, created by
Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway, looked a little intimidating at a party full of strappy sandals, but it was absolutely appropriate for zipping along on the lawn.
And of course, there were as many smartphones out as smart people. Under a towering maple strung with white lights, little screens glowed like fireflies at tables during dinner.
Some guests, including several prominent ones, didn’t show up (and didn’t even bother to text apologies), leaving holes in the carefully seated tables. Others removed jackets and unbuttoned shirts to their navels. Then they gyrated like strippers on the dance floor.
Over at a head table, a pair of gold high-heeled sandals hung from the back of a chair. They were owned by Debbie Bancroft, an easygoing co-chair of the benefit.
“It’s my freedom flag for other women who want to remove their stilettos,” she said.
