Who Was at This Year’s Party in the Garden at MoMA?

Refik Anadol was one of this year’s MoMA Party in the Garden honorees. Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Museum of Modern Art

Arguably a highlight of the spring party season, MoMA’s annual Party in the Garden tends to attract an eclectic crowd of not only philanthropists, financiers and patrons of the arts but also artists, collectors, celebrities, art world wonks and sundry socialites. The event is, of course, a fundraiser—one specifically benefitting the Museum of Modern Art’s general operating fund—though as these soirees go, its reputation for ebullience along with its storied afterparty often draws a more mixed crowd than your typical charity event.

The evening began in the celebrated Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden with cocktails and progressed to a sit-down dinner in the Agnes Gund Garden Lobby where the 2024 Party in the Garden honorees, artists LaToya Ruby Frazier, Joan Jonas, and Refik Anadol and philanthropist Ronnie Heyman, were given their due. From there, revelers made their way back to the sculpture garden for the aforementioned afterparty, where guests enjoyed an intimate but high-energy concert by pop singer FLETCHER (currently on tour) and DJ sets by Heron Preston and METTE.

Latoya Ruby Frazier. Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Museum of Modern Art

In attendance were some familiar faces at events like these, including Alexandre and Géraldine Arnault, Stavros Niarchos II and Dasha Zhukova. Art insiders who made an appearance at the dinner, afterparty or both included curator Connie Butler, The Studio Museum in Harlem’s Thelma Golden, art philanthropist Agnes Gund, gallerist Jeffrey Deitch, patron and collector Sarah Arison and art historian and curator Scott Rothkopf. Among the artists at MoMA’s Party in the Garden were Mickalene Thomas, Derrick Adams, Simone Leigh, Vija Celmins, Adam Pendleton, Doug Aitken, Rashid Johnson, Glenn Ligon and Julie Mehretu, who designed BMW’s latest Art Car. And designer Gabriela Hearst, filmmaker and entrepreneur Andrew Jarecki, television personality Gayle King, author Rachel Kushner and Ford Foundation president Darren Walker.