Public Art Fund’s 2025 Party Blended Ping Pong, Portraits and Power

The atmosphere at the organization’s largest fundraiser of the year was decidedly playful. Olivia LiCalzi/BFA.com

Another day, another spring fling! Last week was awash in art parties, and that busy lineup included the 2025 Public Art Fund Party at the Metropolitan Pavilion. The celebration of the artists who turn New York’s skyline, sidewalks and subway stations into something worth looking up for marked the official kickoff of Public Art Fund’s spring and summer programming, which includes exhibitions by Paul Anthony Smith, Torkwase Dyson, Thaddeus Mosley, Monira Al Qadiri and (in advance) the group of artists whose work will appear in “Between Tides,” which will bring sculptural ping-pong tables by emerging and mid-career artists to Rockaway Beach in summer of 2026.

In a nod to that particular exhibition, the party leaned into play with ping pong tables stocked with artist-designed keepsake paddles by Carlos H. Matos, Ilana Harris-Babou, Las Hermanas Iglesias, Moko Fukuyama and Amalia Pica. Cocktails flowed (with a Ghia twist for the teetotaling set), and Carmen Winant invited guests to become part of a living, breathing portrait installation as the night progressed from meet-and-greet to a 300-person sit-down dinner with decor by Smith. A silent auction featuring work by forty-one contemporary artists kept patrons and collectors busy until the afterparty, where DJs MeLo-X and Juliana Huxtable supplied the beats and Chef Malcolm Livingston II, formerly head pastry chef at wd-50 and Noma, Copenhagen, supplied the ice cream bar.

Spotted among the crowd were artists and creatives Kambui Olujimi, Karyn Olivier, Adrienne Elise Tarver, Baseera Khan, Sophie Elgort (recently profiled in Observer), Janelle Lynch, Yvette Mayorga, Hayal Pozanti, Edra Soto and Grimanesa Amorós, plus philanthropists Patricia E. Harris, Nancy Alderman, Ziggy Alderman, Jessica Ogilvie and Therese Lundqvist.

Art world insiders including Richard Armstrong, Marcela Guerrero, Jean Cooney, Solana Chehtman, Kaitlin Garcia-Maestas, Suhaly Bautista Carolina and Natasha Logan mingled with gallerists Ylinka Barotto, Anna Blum, David Lewis, Devan Owens, Claire O’Neill and Haley Shaw, as tastemakers including Nimay Ndolo (@nimayndolo) and Kira Lokhmatova (@theartrevival_) documented every moment. And while actor Paul Rudd and producer Julie Yaeger weren’t there in person, they were listed among the evening’s ‘party champions.’