61st Street star Courtney B. Vance hosted the Storm King Gala 2024 to honor artist Wangechi Mutu and museum executive Adam D. Weinberg inside the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center in New York City.
“It was such a memorable occasion to be able to install art directly into the land. To watch the soil from my homeland, Kenya, mix and melt with that of the Lenape people was a very spiritual and joyous occasion,” shared Mutu, whose work has been built into Storm King’s outdoor campus.
Whoopi Goldberg hosted the Faces of Hope WPDI Gala for the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative, founded by Forest Whitaker. Held at Gotham Hall in New York City, Goldberg, Whitaker and Caroline Descombris, WPDI executive director, Paris, engaged in a fireside chat to discuss the organization and achievements. Since its inception in 2012, the non-profit organization has touched the lives of more than 1.9 million people worldwide through training programs, technology education, meditation and crisis-solving guidance, peace conferences and small business initiatives. Whittaker thanked the night’s attendees for participating in the change “so desperately needed in this world.”
French filmmaker Mati Diop accepted the 2024 Albie Award at the Maysles Documentary Center’s fifth annual awards dinner at Marcus Samuelsson’s Red Rooster restaurant in Harlem, New York. Her documentary, Dahomey, chronicles 26 artifacts from the Kingdom of Dahomey being returned from France to Benin and the reaction of the Beninese people. She thanked the Maysles organization for allowing her to shine a light on the people of the West African country and their restored royal treasures.
