Is it wrong to feel like dancing on a school night?  The gent sitting next to me didn’t even get to cross that bridge—he had to exit early for a drive out to Malibu on a school-related mission.  But whatever you thought of Leon Bridges’ laid-back-going-on-languid set, he might as well have been singing smart speaker installation instructions after Bryan Stevenson’s riveting introduction and tribute to Glenn Ligon, one of this year’s honorees at the Hammer Museum’s annual Gala in the Garden.  In these “If It Feels Good …”— than it probably isn’t—times, this smartest of public speakers struck a chord (or chords—it was really a kind of anthem)—that connected both philosophically and viscerally with his receptive audience.  Even Ligon seemed at least as moved by Stevenson’s eloquence as the honor itself.

Glenn Ligon (L) and Bryan Stevenson, Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images

Ligon rose to the occasion, paying tribute both to his co-honorees, the Hammer, and the larger institutional context, acknowledging the preceding year’s honorees, Hilton Als and Ava DuVernay, Stevenson himself, and Stevenson’s vital work as the director of the Equal Justice Initiative.  He immediately recalled Stevenson’s inscription of his copy of Just Mercy, Stevenson’s best-selling memoir of his work appealing wrongful convictions and capital cases at a book-signing event in New York—“With hope.”

Michael Chabon, Margaret Atwood, and Armie Hammer, Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

If I could put my finger on what we were collectively feeling after the speeches had wrapped and we were waiting for dessert, that would come closest.  A little hope is a dangerous thing—just ask Margaret Atwood—and backed with Champagne and a few delicious tequila cocktails it can wreak havoc.  Atwood (and Michael Chabon—whose introduction seemed laborious beside Stevenson’s ex tempore pyrotechnics) seemed to be banking the fires Stevenson and Ligon had stoked to a roar, dangling her own slender thread of hope against the backdrop of all we were celebrating that evening.  (But I noticed she didn’t really touch on the environmental concerns addressed in some of her novels.)

Armie Hammer, Tom Ford, and Elizabeth Chambers, Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

I would have enjoyed meeting Will Ferrell, Armie Hammer and Tom Ford (to say nothing of Solange Ferguson and Darren Star, co-chairs of the event with Elizabeth Segerstrom), but the Hollywood glitterati faded before Stevenson’s visionary glow and I bee-lined it for his front-and-center table. Always in the right place at the right time, Michael Govan was positioned between Stevenson and LACMA besties Lynda and Stewart Resnick.  I’m hoping they matched Stevenson ‘capital’ for ‘capital’ and wrote him a WONDERFUL check before the evening was over.

Will Ferrell, Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

I didn’t meet Darren Star (which was a shame—I have a show to pitch and was I ever in the mood); but master showrunner (and benefactor) Marcy Carsey was right up front in a gorgeous silver blazer and I had to wonder how Stevenson’s, Ligon’s and Atwood’s remarks resonated with her own television legacy.  Actress-producer-director and longtime Hammer supporter Susan Bay Nimoy was close by, elegant in a black wrap and gown Margiela.  It was an evening for power dressing and power building.  Amongst the couture-clad were political (mostly Democratic I’m happy to report) power-players, and actual architects and builders; and we were reminded that the Hammer’s expansion into the adjoining Oxy building was still under way.  Frank Gehry, Kulapat Yantrasast and Edwin Chan were all there, though I didn’t see master-of-the-expansion Michael Maltzan.

John Waters and Greg Gorman, Photo by Donato Sardella/Getty Images

I could only wave to John Waters as I made my way back to my table.  He blew a kiss I knew was intended for my editor.  As I sidled past impossibly elegant masters of this domain like Stephanie Barron and Andrea Fiuczynski, all of us dazzled by Stevenson, I felt a twinge of nostalgia chatting with Jeff Poe, who held court at a table of B&P friends and artists (including Dave Muller), and earlier with Margo Leavin and one of her former artists, Roy Dowell, who was there with Lari Pittman.  Naturally there was a heavy Regen contingent, including Theaster Gates and Cathy Opie.

Michael Kohn, photo by Ezrha Jean Black

I was equally in the thick of it at my own table where I was seated between Simone Manwarring of Sprüth Magers and Michael Kohn, and across from the artist who had invited me to join this power set, Diane Silver.  Contemporary art, Waters would have reminded me, might never welcome me—but, with the Hammer’s Public Programs Director, Claudia Bestor, so critical to the Hammer’s engagement with a broad range of public issues, seated only a table away, I felt reassured that the Hammer invites everyone into its generous and vital forum.  Annie Philbin had already announced the event had taken in $2.6 million, and I took pleasure thinking about how creatively Philbin, Bestor and the rest of the Hammer team would be spending it. 

Annie Philbin and Michael Govan, Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images

“I think Glenn is a free man,” Stevenson said of Ligon—and we were all aware of being included in that moment, celebrating both freedom of consciousness and consciousness of freedom.  There was an impressive Assouline-published coffee table book waiting for the exiting party guests; but I wish they had just handed us cards telling us the cost of the swag was being given right back to the Hammer—or just as nicely, Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative.  The moment for dancing may have passed, but the moment for giving is ever present—and urgent.  For gifts to the EJI, go to https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/eji.  For the Hammer, go here:  https://hammer.ucla.edu/support/ or call their Development Department.  Above all, just go.