Inside The Kitchen’s Spring Gala where Jodie Foster and Ziwe Toasted with Downtown Tastemakers

The uplifted energy of The Kitchen, which is among New York’s oldest and most established art nonprofits, spilled to City Winery on Thursday, May 21, when the 55-year-old institution hosted its annual spring gala at the pier-viewed venue. Doing justice to the multidisciplinary avant-garde landmark’s grassroots spirit, the crowd—which included Hollywood royalty Jodie Foster and comedian Ziwe—held a spontaneous spirit during the cocktail hour while the winery’s own Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon were enjoyed with views of the Hudson River.

The evening’s true stars, however, were the event’s honorees, Oscar-nominated filmmaker and video artist Garrett Bradley, director and producer Cheryl Dunye, Sundance Film Festival chief curator Shari Frilot, and documentary filmmaker and activist Catherine Gund. The intergenerational roster unites in their stark commitment to storytelling—especially of underrepresented voices—and put forth women’s struggles and achievements.

“Each of these honorees embodies what The Kitchen has always stood for: the belief that experimental, boundary-pushing work rooted in Black, queer, and feminist experience is not marginal,” Legacy Russell, who celebrates her fifth year as The Kitchen’s executive director and chief curator, told Galerie. She also added that her institution “has never believed in the hierarchy of forms,” which has been manifested in the organization’s long trajectory of exhibiting a diverse roster of experimental artists, including Bill T. Jones, the Beastie Boys, Philip Glass, Cindy Sherman, David Byrne, and, more recently, Anicka Yi and Meriem Bennani. 

Among the soiree’s attendees were artists Mickalene Thomas, Simone Leigh, and Joan Jonas, joined by collectors Carmine Boccuzzi, Robert Soros, and Komal Shah and curators Rujeko Hockley, Zoe Lukov, Jasmine Wahi, and T. Lax who presented the award to Bradley. Other local nonprofit institutions’ leaders also claimed their seats at the dinner to show support, including Alyssa Nitchun of The Leslie Lohman Museum, Performance Space’s Pati Hertling and Swiss Museum director Stefanie Hessler.

Fresh off the spring art fair week and Venice Biennale’s vernissage, the attendees delved into intercontinental conversations about their favorite fair booths and pavilions. For the globe-trotting sector, The Kitchen stands as a local stalwart of risk-taking and boundary-pushing creativity, especially when many small experimental art institutions struggle and even shutter. Despite social and fiscal challenges, however, the institution is on the cusp of a major renovation project of its Chelsea space, which it has called home for the last four decades.

This excitement was evident in Russell’s opening remarks, which paid a special salute to the night’s sponsor Marfa Stance in an ensemble from the British luxury outerwear brand’s new collection. Late philanthropist and collector Agnes Gund was celebrated by Russell as a guiding force, but perhaps Catherine Gund’s homage to her mother was the evening’s most heartfelt moment. “Every time we gather in rooms like this, across generations, across identities, across histories, refusing the logic of isolation and disappearance, we belong to one another, and belonging is how history becomes something other than brutality,” Gund told Galerie.

Following the honorees’s speeches on how art can be a tool for resilience, the evening escalated to a multi-sensory spirit with keiyaA. The Brooklyn musician filled the stage with her lingering electronic sounds and a large projection, which immersed the crowd with a moody sonic atmosphere.

“Gathering matters; witnessing matters,” underlined Russell about the important of celebration among creative communities where struggle is growingly felt. “We don’t separate the live from the object, the body from the archive,” she said, and added: “That integration means we can hold artists through the full arc of their work across a lifetime of many milestones of change, experimentation, and emergence, so when we celebrate together, we’re not just honoring what has survived.”

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