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A-List The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Gala lights up the night. C ontemporary Arts Museum Houston Gala is one of the most incandescent evenings of the season — a high- voltage soirée for the cool collector set with a celebrated art auction. This year's benefit, concisely rebranded as CAMH Party, was all that and more, marking a fresh chapter in the museum's annals as the first fundraiser under the leadership of co-director and chief curator Ryan N. Dennis with co-director and chief operating officer Melissa McDonnell Luján. Novel also was the absence of gala chairs. In their place, a hard-working host committee stepped up, underwriting tables and acquiring tickets for the cause. A throng of more than 200 — museum trustees and other staunch patron types, gallerists, and A-listers, as in artists — turned out to support one of America's oldest contemporary-art institutions, one that at 76 years remains cutting edge, nimble, and intensely relevant. (As proof, see the now- on-view mid-career survey of Tomashi Jackson, whose painting, printmaking, and installation work amounts to a lesson in American history.) ART as in By Catherine D. Anspon. Photography Emily Jaschke and Charlie Ewing. This fête, visually curated in the CAMH's sleek parallelogram by The Events Company, unfolded in five acts: cocktails fueled by LALO Tequila and art viewing; the Swift + Company-catered seated dinner; a hotly contested live auction, bidding conducted by Sotheby's Charlie Caulkins; more cocktails paired with silent-auction action; and a late-night after-party spun by Grammy-garnering DJ Spinderella. The evening was a bridge from CAMH's notable past (as the first museum to show works by photographer Cindy Sherman, 1980; painter Julian Schnabel, 1976; and, more recently, the Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Garrett Bradley, 2019) to its role today as a bastion of the important and avant-garde. (Fittingly, photography by Sherman and Bradley was included in the live auction.) PC Seen: Sissy and Denny Kempner; Penelope and Lester Marks; Poppi Massey, high bidder on a coveted Vincent Valdez Amnesia drawing, with daughter Phoebe Massey Cholnoky; board chair Ruth Dreessen; board prez Elisa Stude Pye with husband Cris Pye; Johanne and Joe Gatto; CAMH curators Patricia Restrepo and Rebecca Matalon with gallerist husband Adam Marnie; Alecia Harris; Mara and Erick Calderon; Houston Arts Alliance's Taylor Jackson and Grace Zuñiga; Stephanie and Jackson Smith; Katherine and Justin Smith; gallerists Heidi Vaughan, Laura Rathe with artist Gil Bruvel, Josh Pazda with wife/MFAH retail's Chris Goins-Pazda, Kerry Inman with husband Denby Auble, McClain Gallery's Sharon Graham and Hélène Schlumberger, Tom Raith of Seven Sisters, and Tureen's Cody Fitzsimmons and Chris Scott in from Dallas; Kristen and Drew Perrin; Jessica Phifer; Drew Baird; art advisers Moriah Alise and Katharine Barthelme Frank with husband Shane Frank; Drs. Annette and Anthony Brissett; Louise Jamail; Heidi and David Gerger; Danielle O'Bannon and Jon Redwine; artist Angelbert Metoyer with fiancée Sarah Mangum; Randy Palmer; Darryl Sharpton; Mitra Murthy and Alex Lyos; Unique James; Houston's new director of public art, Alton DuLaney; Glasstire's Brandon Zech; and auction headliners including Jamal Cyrus, Robert Pruitt, Lovie Olivia, Alexis Pye, Janavi Mahimtura Folmsbee, Erika Alonso, and Emily Peacock. Phillip Pyle II, Robert Pruitt Ebony McFarland, Alexis Pye DaLyah Jones Angelbert Metoyer Sarah Mangum Jessica Phifer, Denny & Sissy Kempner Chris Scott Cody Fitzsimmons Caroline Dannenbaum Elisa Stude Pye Elizabeth Cooper Shane Frank & Katharine Barthelme Frank Chris Goins-Pazda & Josh Pazda Erick & Mara Calderon Alton DuLaney Janavi Mahimtura Folmsbee Charlie Caulkins Melissa McDonnell Luján Ryan N. Dennis 100