Last Night's Parties: Charlie Rose Hosted Mana Contemporary's Collectors Dinner At Milk Studios, Love Heals Held Its 2013 Gala, And More!

Mana Contemporary's First Annual Collectors Dinner at Milk Studios

Where: Milk Studios Who was there: Guests included Charlie Rose, Marina Abramovic, Tom Sokolowski, and Nazy Nazhand. Other details: Last night's Mana First Annual Collectors Dinner, honoring the artist Marina Abramovic (recently featured in the documentary The Artist is Present) and hosted by Charlie Rose, was an elegant affair held at Milk Studios. Mana Contemporary is a fine arts storage space, artists studio, art restoration, and art management destination based out of Jersey City. Mana Contemporary's event featured a choreographed performance by the Karole Armitage company Armitage Gone! Dance, one of the most prolific contemporary choreographers of our town (responsible for the Madonna Vogue sequence). [Photo: Marina Abramovic, Charlie Rose] [Photo via Guest of a Guest] In the midst of a multi-course dinner, Charlie Rose held a panel featuring these art luminaries including Tom Sokolowski of the Andy Warhol museum in Pittsburgh, where they discussed the purpose of designing an artist community and business such as Mana Contemporary and the similarities between dance and performance art. Armitage called Mana a happy marriage between "capitalism and kibbutz." Charlie Rose also asked featured speaker Nazy Nazhand (the founder of Art Middle East) about the influence of the Arab Spring on Arab and Middle Eastern art- which she said did not so much directly influence Arab work as it did all art work globally. She explained that some of the greatest art came out of repression, rather than rebellion. Marina Abramovic felt this repression in her Communist upbringing, despite her mother's involvement in the arts. Abramovic was honored by Mana and received a giant "utilitarian" drawer where she could later store large prints and art work, as she is in the midst of building the Abramovic institute. She finished her discussion with Rose by pointing out that "scientists always need proof. Artists don't. We feel things." [Photo via Twitter]