A Look Inside The Whitney Studio Party 2013

Last night, the stylish set gathered at New York’s Skylight at Moynihan Station to celebrate the Whitney Museum of American Art’s 2013 Gala and Studio Party, in honor of artist Ed Ruscha this year. A-List guests Dianna Agron, Lake Bell and Scott Campbell, Taylor Schilling, Mickey Sumner, Laure Heriard Dubreuil and Aaron Young, Alexa Chung, Olivia Wilde, Hannah Bronfman, Riley Keough, Man Repeller Leandra Medine, Lily Kwong, and Julia Restoin Roitfeld, among many others, showed up to pay homage to the artist. David Byrne took the stage in a surprise performance, singing the crowd favorite “A Road to Nowhere,” rousing the well-heeled dinner guests to their feet. Between bites of upscale comfort foods, including truffled tater tots and lotus dumplings, partygoers schmoozed to “smooth jazz” tunes spun by D.J. Brendan Fallis.

Go HERE for more photos by Josh Wong from The Whitney Studio Party Gala 2013!

  [Julia Restoin Roitfeld] [Tom Sachs, Sarah Hoover]

While the annual event never fails as a feast for the eyes, this year’s spectacle was undoubtedly the space’s centerpiece. There, nude models posed among great heights of stacked luggage by Louis Vuitton, the event’s sponsor. Artists’ sketches—and later, those of any charcoal-inclined attendee—littered the floor around the bare bodies. Meanwhile, Ruscha’s own work flashed on large format screens, including “I Plead Insanity Because I'm Just Crazy For That Little Girl” (1976).

“I’m here especially for Ed. He’s one of my favorite artists, so all of my attention goes to him tonight,”

said Laure Heriard Dubreuil, CEO and co-founder of The Webster, Miami.

[Ed Ruscha, Laure Heriard Dubreuil, Aaron Young]

“When an artist looks at another artist and says, ‘I wish I made that,’ then you know he’s good... I find myself doing that every time I look at one of his works,"

adds her husband, artist Aaron Young. As for the rest of the evening, he explained,

“I always keep myself in the dark until it happens. You know, a surprise to look forward to.”

At the end of the long night, newly married couple Lake Bell and Scott Campbell stopped to share their highlights, with Bell saying,

“Seeing Mickey Sumner [Sting’s daughter, and of Frances Ha fame] looking lovely, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

[Mickey Sumner]

[Photos via BFA, @guestofaguest, @colbert_md]