Style meets Art at the Tribeca Ball 2010

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Style meets Art at the Tribeca Ball 2010

Posted: April 14, 2010 -

Unaccustomed as I am to Art shows, the Tribeca Ball/Student Art Show last night, as far as I could gather, was an extremely cool occasion.

Maybe it was the paparazzi outside, or the free champagne inside, it might have even been the attendees - Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany, Helena Christensen and Alek Wek were spotted. But overall it had to be the students themselves.

Each Artist displaying their work in a little nook or cranny at the New York Academy of Art, some a little more professionally than others, but all extremely individual and oozing with talent.

With a wide range of stylistic interpretation it was tricky to pin down the good from the bad from the downright ugly. There was the Tracey Emin-esque 'my bedroom as art' installation, the artist at this booth had even brought a pet pooch for additional 'reality' bites - didn't catch her name as she was too busy re-applying lippy when we passed by.

But animal rights folk will be happy to know that said pooch was later seen taking a stroll around other exhibits so it was being exercised.

Another huge installation was a Banksy type wall of graffiti displaying comic strip style images in gargantuan size.

Freaky sculptures that looked like Freddy Krueger had been having a bash at papier mache. I'm sure if I had looked a little closer the news print was probably giving me some deep message about urban waste but the bar was in the next booth so sadly I was dragged away.

I was also quite taken with the 'work in progress' pieces - clearly some students were a little more ardent than others, and whilst some squirreled away in their little dens beaverishly completing their work, others had a better idea and were working the uptown crowds with aplomb - whether they sold anything is unsure, but certainly if they were planning on giving up the day job, there was a tele-sales career ahead of them for sure.

The most interesting thing to look at had to be the attendees - some fantastic downtown chic and with the dress code having been set as 'upscale downtown', the natives of Tribeca did not disappoint.