Interview

Every week in New York City carries a different theme. Hot off the heels of Fashion Week, New Yorkers slid back into their pumps for the Armory, which now offers double the promenade—two full piers of artwork, Pier 94 and the new Pier 92, or Armory Show–Modern. It also comes with its own onslaught of parties, after-parties and corresponding extravaganzas. Last night was MoMa's $100 benefit for the museum and P.S.1. The evening's main show was Downtown cult band Gang Gang Dance, who never get onstage before 4 AM—that is, unless the art historical canon comes a-knocking. So it was a rare opportunity for Art Basel's Marc Spiegler and MoMA's Klaus Biesenbach, older board members, European bankers in leather boots, and young girls in fur to see Brian DeGraw, Lizzie Bougatsos, Tim Dewit, and Josh Diamond at a Marc Jacobs-punctual 11 PM. In spite of the free absinthe, the impressive light show on the ceiling, a menacing Midtown on the horizon, and Bougatsos' virtuosic drumming, it was the occasional drag queen, and the members of the band's tour rider who entered gratuit, who got the most out of this early bird special.

For more coverage of the MoMA Armory event and Gang Gang Dance, see Art in America's The Scene. (Photo above, Gang Gang Dance and bottom-left, DJ Justin Miller. Photos by Scott Rudd, courtesy MoMA. Bottom Right, David Sherry and Erin Krause, photo by Alex Gartenfeld.)