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13th Annual Brooklyn Artists Ball Raises $2.8M for Brooklyn Museum

EASTERN PARKWAY — On Tuesday, April 9, 2024, the Brooklyn Museum celebrated its thirteenth annual Brooklyn Artists Ball as hundreds of guests from the art world and beyond gathered to honor renowned artist and activist Titus Kaphar. The Museum’s largest annual fundraiser, the Brooklyn Artists Ball, raised $2.8 million this year, which will be critical in supporting renowned special exhibitions, reimagined collection galleries, and public programming for visitors of all ages.

The 2024 Brooklyn Artists Ball was made possible by Dior, marking the fashion house’s second consecutive year as the event’s sponsor. Dior has formed a strong relationship with the Museum over the years, from the blockbuster exhibition Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams (2021) to the 2022 Brooklyn Artists Ball, which honored Maria Grazia Chiuri, Dior’s Creative Director of women’s haute couture, ready-to-wear, and accessories collections.

At this year’s cocktail reception, guests were invited into the Museum’s art-filled lobby, accentuated with decor inspired by Titus Kaphar’s practice, where guests were treated to a special performance by Brooklyn United Music & Arts. At the glittering seated dinner in the iconic Beaux-Arts Court, Anne Pasternak, Shelby White and Leon Levy Director, Brooklyn Museum, welcomed the over 600 guests and applauded the evening’s honoree: “Like so many of the people in this room, Titus knows that helping people understand history enhances our ability to see one another with dignity and love.”

The dinner closed out with an electrifying performance by British rapper Little Simz. The revelry continued with the annual Brooklyn Artists Ball After Party, hosted by the Museum’s Young Leadership Council. Headlining the party was producer, rapper, and Brooklyn Museum supporter Swizz Beatz, who spun a crowd-rousing DJ set that closed out the night on a high. Guests also enjoyed after-hours gallery access and artist-led activations throughout the Museum, including a one-of-a-kind, immersive photo booth by artist Alexandria Smith.

In attendance were both the Museum’s community of supporters and a host of celebrities and notables from the art and entertainment industries, including Rosamund Pike, Naomi Watts, Rebecca Hall, Mickalene Thomas, Isabelle Fuhrman, Thomas Doherty, Morgan Spector, Antonia Gentry, Kristine Froseth, Aria Mia Loberti, Todd Adam Kessler, Peter Marino, Victor Alfaro, Karishma Swali, Jessica Diehl, Marina Abramović, Derrick Adams, Brian Donnelly (KAWS), José Parlá, Kehinde Wiley, and Kennedy Yanko.

About Titus Kaphar

Titus Kaphar was born in 1976 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He awakened a lifelong interest in art history while attending junior college, taking a course that alerted him to his affinity for visual learning. He earned a BFA in studio art at San José State University, California, in 2001 and an MFA at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, in 2006. Kaphar’s paintings are multilayered, sometimes sculptural, through his manipulations: slashes, erasures, and swipes of paint aim to reflect the ways in which certain histories are obscured, lost, or waiting to be revealed. In a 2017 TED Talk, he expounded the impact of art-making on amending the art-historical canon by demonstrating his practice in real time, applying broad paint strokes of white onto one of his canvases to create a new work, which now lives in the Brooklyn Museum’s collection. Kaphar founded the film production company Revolution Ready as an extension of his art practice in 2021, and his feature film “Exhibiting Forgiveness” premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Other works are held by the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas; Detroit Institute of Arts; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Kaphar, also a recipient of a 2018 MacArthur Fellowship, lives and works in New Haven, Connecticut, where he co-founded the arts incubator NXTHVN.

About the Brooklyn Museum

At the Brooklyn Museum, art is a vital force for personal transformation and social change. For 200 years, the Museum has expanded the definitions of art and what it means to be a museum by revealing untold stories and uplifting our shared humanity. Among the oldest, largest, and boldest art museums in the United States, the Brooklyn Museum holds an encyclopedic collection of over 500,000 objects representing more than 5,500 years of creativity from cultures around the globe. Highlights range from ancient Egyptian masterpieces and world-class American works to our Center for Feminist Art, the only one of its kind in the country. Housed in a landmark building in the heart of Brooklyn, the Museum is dedicated to its communities — both near and far — and remains an advocate for growth, healing, and social change.