PHOTOS: Inside LA MOCA’s 2026 Gala

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Keanu Reeves, Alexandra Grant, China Chow and Alex Israel. Jojo Korsh/BFA.com

The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art’s annual gallery is one of those truly exciting evenings, and the 2026 show at The Geffen Contemporary did not disappoint. The $3 million night was hosted by the ebullient dancer and multi-hyphenate creative Stephen Galloway and “made more special Piero Golia’a brilliant and intelligent intervention by a large number of participants,” Ann GoldsteinLA MOCA Interim Director Maurice Marciano, told the Observer.

First with an itinerary? Guests lined up for cocktails at a banquet that featured a spectacular performance by the MOCA Gala Symphony Orchestra alongside an installation specially designed for the event by Golia. Since then, bringing back last year’s MOCA Legends format, the gala fêted three figures whose contributions to contemporary art, in different, fundamental ways. For starters, an artist and MOCA board member Tala Madani took the stage to introduce the artist Paul McCarthyfollowed by the director of The Brick Hamza Walkerwho introduces his “MONUMENTS” co-producer, singer Kara Walker. Chairman of the Board Carolyn Clark Power made recommendations by seeing the president of the Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo Eugenio López Alonso twenty years of support.

Hamza Walker and the Honorable Kara Walker. Getty Images of MOCA

“When I returned to MOCA last summer as interim director, I returned to the institution deeply focused on its mission to present the most important and most challenging art of our time,” said Goldstein, pointing to the museum as “an ecosystem that empowers artists to challenge, provoke and transform our understanding of the world.”

In the crowd that had gathered were the players Supriya Ganesh again Keanu Reeves (on the arm of the Los Angeles and Berlin-based artist Alexandra Grant), who shared a room with the filmmaker Ava DuVernaybest-selling author Minka Kellya runner Trisha Cardosoproducer China Chowsinger-songwriter Rufus Wainwright again Dan Reynolds of Imagine Dragons. Among them were venture capital investors and art collectors Jarl Mohnbusinessman and art collector Sonya Yupower couple Balthazar again Rosetta Gettyphilanthropists Jerry again Terri Kohl, Deborah Irmas again Terri Smooke, and collectors Heather Podesta, By B. Cypres again Clifford J. Einstein.

The art world itself evolved strongly, too, of course. Director of the Hammer Museum Zoe Ryanthe custodian Connie Butlergalleries Jeffrey Deitch again Estella ProvaFounder of Box Mara McCarthy and a long list of artists who have rubbed elbows with the designer Johnson Hartigbuilder Kulapat Yantrasast and other notable creators, giving the evening its own kind of energy.