Venue: Walker Art Center
Attendees: Approximately 1,000
Caterer: Wolfgang Puck Catering
Event Planners: Phillip Bahar, director of marketing and
public relations for the Walker Art Center; two employees of Target Corporation,
which was the main corporate sponsor; and Aviadler, an events-planning firm
based in New York City
The Walker Art Center celebrated its re-opening and new
facility with 12 events in April 2005. The main event was a gala called “First
Exposure,” which took place on April 15. It began with a cocktail reception, and
guests were the first to see the museum’s 11 new galleries, which boasted works
from the Walker’s permanent collection.
Artists Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad of The BodyCartography Project performed a work that, according to the artists, “plays with the aperture of space, focus, and time between two people as a generator of dance.” The Walker also offered film screenings throughout the evening.
Guests enjoyed a sit-down dinner of grilled filet mignon and braised short ribs. The planners chose long rows of tables for the dinner. Each table had its own continuous candelabra—50 to 60 feet long. The striking centerpieces featured paint cans, punched with many small holes, on tall stems. They threw off thousands of small circles of light. The walls were draped in black fabric, and floor-to-ceiling mirrors reflected the candlelight.
“The mood was expansive,” Phillip Bahar says. “Because of the décor there was no sense of size. The experience was ethereal—like sitting among the stars.”
