Madame Mayhem. (Patrick McMullan/PatrickMcMullan.com)

“This is insane...it’s like a Fellini film,” The Observer overheard one guest murmur as we arrived at the Southampton Hospital gala last Saturday evening. The theme of the evening was Grand Prix Monaco, though many of the high-paying donors didn’t seem to have gotten the memo—or known what it meant, perhaps. Women wore colorful dresses in every conceivable hue and style, while the men ranged from casual checkered shirts to top hats and tails.

Though this was a charity event, there was a measure of self-interest on the part of the attendees: after all, the Jenny and John Paulson Emergency Department of Southampton Hospital is the only emergency room facility for 50 miles. As opposed to say, giving money to Haiti, this was clearly a cause that could potentially affect donors directly.

“This benefit is considered sort of the social benefit of the season,” gala chair Laura Lofaro Freeman told The Observer. “It’s really to update and upgrade the equipment in the emergency room, make sure it’s cutting-edge…et cetera.”

When we asked what was the most common kind of emergency they dealt with in the Hamptons—beyond the expertise of the handsome doctors in Royal Pains—Ms. Freeman ticked off a list. “Terrible car accidents, surfing accidents, bike accidents...and, you know, a lot of a heart attacks.”

Heart attacks were a prevalent theme at the gala, particularly when the president and CEO of the hospital, Robert S. Chaloner, took the stage during dinner.

“Our dream was to get 800 people in a tent, crank the heat up to 100 degrees, and hope that someone has a heart attack, knowing that our hospital is only a block away,” he joked.

To drive the point home even further, an ambulance appeared on the lawn, with its lights on, during cocktail hour. Someone had already taken a nasty spill in the grass, we were told. Despite the fact that the party was held on the hospital’s grounds on Wickapogue Road, the emergency truck was on call all evening. You know, just in case.

Of course, the costuming alone was enough to give an elderly patient a cardiac episode. Joy Marks and Leesa Rowland were in hot pink, while Archie Comics publisher Nancy Silberkleit wore construction-area neon (“I’m more of a Veronica than a Betty tonight,” she told us), a look copied by Dr. Lewis Feder. Global head of marketing and investor relations for Ares Management Suzanne Murphy went with a subtler tangerine gown. Somers Farkas chose a lighter shade of gold to accent her deep tan, while Jean Shafiroff had changed from her polo daywear of bright yellow to a white ball gown featuring lemon-colored daffodils.

Then there was the black brigade: Madame Mayhem, the Chanel-sporting goth-chic singer who was the “surprise” guest of the evening, joining bandleader Alex Donner for his 10th year at the event.

“I usually sing Lady Gaga, but I think tonight that will be Madame Mayhem,” Mr. Donner laughed. We couldn’t tell if this was a joke. Ms. Mayhem ended up performing “Mony Mony”…an unusual selection, but one that got the audience dancing (without regard for their blood pressure).

We asked Ms. Freeman about the origin of her outfit, a deceptively simple but complexly constructed bodice-and-gown affair that floated open whenever she embraced a new guest.

“The idea was to make it ethereal and fun and French…sort of like Grand Prix Monaco,” Ms. Freeman said, twirling around in a spray of baby blue.

Helpfully, Ms. Freeman kept her designer by her side. “Two things that Laura mentioned when she told me about her idea for the dress: she wanted it to open up in the wind when she walked,” Project Runway veteran Wesley Nault told The Observer, “and the other is that Laura loves construction, so she literally wanted it to stand up when she sat down. So you can sit the dress on the bed and it looks like someone’s in it.” Eerie!

Once everyone had flounced their way into the tents, we found ourselves sitting at the table of Howard Lorber, chairman of Prudential Douglas Elliman, the evening’s biggest sponsor.  (Also from the firm was top-selling broker Lisa Simonsen.) Chris Del Gatto of Circa was to our left, looking a little bit glum despite the presence of his gorgeous fiancée, model Veronica Webb. We don’t blame him: during a game at the Bridgehampton Polo Club earlier that afternoon, one of his team’s horses had died during a match against Nacho Figueras’ team.

We asked Mr. Del Gatto why polo wasn’t played at the Olympics anymore.

“You get very particular horses,” he sighed. “And the travel can be very tough on them.”

That didn’t explain why dressage is still an Olympic sport, but we decided not to press it, especially since Social Life publisher Justin Mitchell was sitting right across from us, and as it was the media sponsor of the evening, we didn’t want to speak too ill of the Sport of Kings, which the magazine covers extensively. Besides, we were here to talk about human health, not horses! (Not to mention that Peter Brandt and Stephanie Seymour were in earshot.)

The gala also featured a silent auction, in which guests could bid on a number of interesting items, including a watercolor portrait of your child, home or pet (but no snakes) by artist Katrina Vanderlip. By evening’s end, more than $1.6 million had been raised for improvements to the emergency unit.

Nevertheless, Ellesse CEO Byron Hero was still wary. “Let’s just say I wouldn’t want to get sick here,” he quipped.

dgrant@observer.com

Arrogant? Sure. Wrong? No. What's interesting about Mr. Smith (and he knows it) is that talent at this specific moment in his career is--almost--secondary. Any art that's been bought and displayed by Charles Saatchi (circa 2006), shown by Jeffrey Deitch (2007) and, as of next month, installed by Peter Brant and Stephanie Seymour in the collectors' private museum is, if not a masterpiece, at least a solid market play. For Mr. Smith, for good or ill, fame is coming like a freight train. "He seems to be having a particularly good moment," said Lisa Varghese, his dealer and a director of the Luhring Augustine gallery, in an understatement.

On a recent rainy afternoon, dozens of bright, messy Smith paintings and collages were stacked up against the walls and in piles on the floor of Mr. Brant's stone barn-turned-museum in Greenwich, Conn. The collector's estate is large and lush; polo ponies play in the paddocks adjacent to the Brant Foundation Art Study Center. For the past three weeks, the 35-year-old painter has been creating and installing works for his solo exhibition that will open at the bucolic space on May 7.

Relatively unknown until recently, the Tennessee transplant has abruptly become a darling on the New York art scene. His exhibition in Greenwich is just a precursor to a bigger fuss--he's contributing a large grid of collages to the Venice Biennale and decorating the facade of its Palace of Exhibitions with large vinyl letters in a show opening in June.

Mr. Smith moved slowly around the gallery in a white T-shirt and suspenders, often tearing at the paper in his collages or instructing an assistant on how to glue them together. He is short and a little soft-bodied, talkative, with a nasal braggadocio that betrays his irreverent, occasionally cocky, demeanor. "I knew I was one of the best--going to be one of the best--artists, so I came to New York," he said of his decision to come here in 1998.

Mr. Brant prides himself on his Pied Piper reputation for spotting new talent and leading others to it. "You have to remember that I asked Josh to do the show two years ago, and Urs [Fischer] three and a half years ago. Now Urs is recognized as one of the best contemporary artists in America. Josh has the Venice Biennale," is in talks for some shows in California and has a major commission from Dakis Joannou in Greece.

It's no coincidence that the exhibition will also expose his work to important collectors just in time for the May contemporary art auctions, potentially raising his prices there. Mr. Smith didn't do too well at Phillips de Pury last year: Of the four pieces he had on the block, two didn't sell and one fell below its circa-$15,000 estimate. This year, he has two works in its May 13 sale, a 2007 painting estimated disingenuously low (it's a way to manufacture bidding fever) at $8,000 to $12,000, and a pair of collages at about $25,000.

The Brant exhibition will open doors worldwide for Mr. Smith. "It's acknowledged that [Brant] is very well connected both within the art world and the press, so I'm sure this exhibition will certainly make a splash," Ms. Varghese said. Artist Urs Fischer's exhibition there last year, which featured a melting wax model of Mr. Brant and a giant pit tearing through the gallery's new floor, drew the likes of Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Val Kilmer, Jeff Koons and a handful of influential art collectors, curators and critics.

Mr. Smith has been working quietly for 13 years. But he didn't attract much attention in the U.S. until 2009, when he had a large collage in the New Museum's "Younger Than Jesus" exhibition. It was later bought by Mr. Brant. The following year, he painted a series of pieces directly onto the walls at Deitch Studios in Long Island City, challenging notions of art ownership and commodification. It doesn't hurt that he keeps company with other art-world "bad boys," as Ms. Varghese put it, like Harmony Korine and Urs Fischer. Mr. Smith worked as an art handler at Luhring before his other employer, the artist Christopher Wool, got him signed on there. (The New York Times' Roberta Smith has dubbed some of his work "terrific.")

But not all of the subsequent attention has been positive. Mr. Smith has been criticized for his intentionally sloppy aesthetic, which has been called amateurish and even downright ugly. And his prolific output--for the Deitch show he created 47 paintings in just three and a half days--suggests to some a flippant attitude toward his work.

And the carelessness is part of the message, Ms. Varghese said. "He treats the paintings and collages a little more roughly than people are used to. There'll be a stack of collages in his studio stuck together, or paintings with a footstep on them," she said. "He's trying to take away the preciousness of it all."

"A lot of artists go after me, hate on me," Mr. Smith said. "I really just do it effortlessly and I don't care, and people can pick up on that." Apparently he's not too worried about this exhibition, either. "I've done every big show and lots of galleries, so I don't view this as a big thing at all," he said. The process was all very casual, with Mr. Brant, "a collector I'd met 20 times," first approaching the artist about the show in passing. Mr. Smith eventually thought to invite Julian Schnabel and Mr. Fischer to come to Greenwich and advise him.

"I wanted some of Urs' venom and casualness toward destruction injected into my work," Mr. Smith said. "And I also wanted Julian's casualness toward scale." Mr. Schnabel encouraged Mr. Smith to take advantage of the gallery's double height ceiling. Mr. Smith took the advice: He's currently at work painting a 30-by-30-foot canvas. But being one of Mr. Brant's edgy adoptees may have its downsides. "I want to downplay the element that it's just a bunch of guys up here with shotguns and jeeps making art shows,"

One of Mr. Smith's friends, Hungarian painter Rita Ackermann, insisted that for all the talk, Mr. Smith is an intensely serious artist. "He's always in the studio," she said. "He's the hardest-working artist I know," echoed Mr. Brant. "You don't have to like the work, but anyone who doesn't see the talent there is blind."

rcorbett@observer.com