Framed by wall-to-ceiling gray skies, high atop Manhattan in the home of Maria Eugenia Maury and William Haseltine, women dressed in chic black dresses, hats, veils and gloves and dashing men with jet black hair posed. They were channeling cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, whose distinctly Mexican imagery is on display at El Museo del Barrio, at a cocktail party heralding El Museo’s May 14th Gala, the Halestine’s will chair.
 |
|
William Haseltine and Maria Eugenia Maury. (Photo: Owen Hoffmann/PatrickMcMullan.com) |
How would this group up their game for that night — honoring Eugenio López Alonso, Founder and President of Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo, Board Trustee Yolanda Santos, and Lisa Garcia Quiroz, Senior Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer at Time Warner Inc. — we wondered.
To help, Patricia Underwood (on this night, pronounced Pah-TREET-Zia) flew in from London, with boxes of hats, headbands and fascinators that would make any vision complete.
“Figueroa did seven of Luis Bunuel’s films and ‘Night of the Iguana,’ with John Huston,” Halestine, told Hamptons.com, playing the charming host. “He is known for stark black and white images and beautiful beautiful exotic women … who might be a little bit dangerous.”
“The Latina sensibility is about doing every thing with passion,” his new wife, the glamorous Venezuelan, Maria Eugenia Maury told us. “Put your heart into everything you do; share your passion and what you like with everyone, and things come out so well.”
El Museo is the leading Latin Museum in the country, she told us. This show has the imprimatur of its new director, Argentinian Jorge Daniel Veneciano, whose last exhibition was the only museum retrospective of Marisol. “It’s transformative, for the museum and for galleries in general to show cinema,” Veneciano said. “So, there are great new wonderful things happening at El Museo. We are giving visibility to Latin American culture and its art in a way that isn’t subsumed by a European lens, which North American art tends to be. And we are showcasing the difference of what art and culture can be like in the Americas.”
 |
|
Andres Serrano and Irina Serrano. (Photo: Owen Hoffmann/PatrickMcMullan.com) |
Andres Serrano (remember the furor Rudy Giuliani created about his art?) lent his hip artist vibe. Other guests included: Mary McFadden, Gabriel Alonso-Mendoza, Jacob Alvarez, Carolina Alvarez-Mathies, Cheryl Anhava, Enrica Arengi Bentivoglio, Camila Arria, Manuela Arria-Maury, Ana Cristina Atencio, Tony Bechara, Gaily and John Beinecke, Henry L. Boulton, Karina Correa-Maury, Jamie Diamond, Karla Farach, Ambassador Sandra Fuentes Berain Villenave, Rhonda Garelick, Jessica Garza-Bueron, Francisco X. Gonzalez and Jeannette M. Baez, Evelyn Gutierrez-Subramaniam, Erika Harrsch, Michael Heller, Victoria Heller, Warren James, Nicholas Kilner, Rachel Lee-Holland, Norma Lujan, Annabelle Mariaca, Alberto Mariaca, Annie La and Jeffrey Mercado, Jerald Miller, Christine Miller Martin and Christian Mürrle, Arturo O’Farrill, Cristina Pineda & Christian Tonatiuh González, Ms. Candy Pratts Price, Camila Rachmanis, Tracey and Phillip Riese, Faanya Rose, Ray Smith, Esmeralda Spinola and Emilio Pedroni, Carmen Ana Unanue, Jorge Daniel Veneciano, Maria C. Wirth, Sabrina Wirth-Sokolik and Lisa Yom.
For more information, visit www.elmuseo.org.
