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The Museum of Contemporary Art's 30th anniversary celebration in L.A. on Saturday night mixed Hollywood big shots—even Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie got a sitter for the private tour—with the international art and fashion sets. To mark the occasion, the event's honorary co-chairs, Dasha Zhukova and Larry Gagosian, commissioned a performance piece by Francesco Vezzoli. Collaborating with Russia's Bolshoi Ballet and a Miuccia Prada-styled Lady Gaga, the Italian artist cooked up a one-time-only work that consisted of a single song played live on a Damien Hirst-customized Steinway piano. It was, as Vezzoli explained, "the shortest musical you will never see again." Almost as attention-grabbing was the gaggle of swimsuit-clad models called the MOCA-ettes, who helped auction off the Hirst piano for $450,000. (In all, the evening raised $4 million.)
After the piano was rolled away and the vodka shots ran dry, the crowd moved to an abandoned store in the heart of West Hollywood for a Pop magazine party. Sure, Tom Ford pointed out the less-than-stellar lighting on the Sunset Strip, but with the star wattage on display, no one seemed to mind. And heck, at least there was more than one bathroom. (Back at the museum, there had been a single Porta-Potty for the 1,000-plus guests—it became the chicest mobile facility in the history of the world when Jessica Alba and Kate Bosworth went in there together.) In the middle of the after-party was Pop's cover girl Tavi. "Oh, I'm just meeting my personal icons tonight," she sighed, which was decidedly more glam than what she'd been doing earlier in the week. "I got a black eye playing volleyball in gym class. It's a good thing I have bangs."
—Derek Blasberg
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There's a lot more to the new film The Private Lives of Pippa Lee than a group of pretty women experimenting with S&M. But is it really that surprising that a scene in which Julianne Moore commands Blake Lively to receive a spanking has generated some prurient buzz?
Lively plays Robin Wright Penn's troubled main character in her wild youth; Moore, the lesbian vamp who (with the help of a camera and some props) coaxes out her naughty side. "Julianne is very professional," Lively assured us at last night's Cinema Society screening, which was co-hosted by A Diamond Is Forever. "I thought it was going to be really awkward, but as soon as they called action she snapped into the strongest character—it made it easy for me not to laugh or feel weird." So how did the Gossip Girl beauty feel attached to a leash? "Scared, but kind of enjoying it."
As Penélope Cruz and Marion Cotillard strolled past yelping photographers, director Rebecca Miller riffed on the bondage scene's thematic importance: "In a way, the whole film's about the way people are bound to each other. It's the central metaphor," she explained. Appropriately, Wright Penn walked the carpet in skin-tight Hervé Léger by Max Azria. No such constraints for co-star Keanu Reeves, who attended in a T-shirt, blazer, and vintage hiking boots—perfect footwear for the after-party at the thick-timbered Ace Hotel.
"They're comfortable," he shrugged, making his way through the hotel's yet-to-open Breslin restaurant (which, a server confided, will seat its first customers on the 23rd). "And it's Sunday night!"
—Darrell Hartman
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