Supermodel Naomi Campbell and rocker Mick Jagger were among the attendees at the British Museum’s inaugural fundraising ball on Saturday, a glitzy event touted by some observers as London’s answer to New York’s Met Gala.
The museum, which boasts one of the largest permanent collections on the planet, said the ball would aim to “celebrate London’s status as one of the world’s leading cultural capitals” and become a new fixture of its social calendar.
The theme, less ambitious than the Met’s elaborate fashion cues, was “pink” — inspired by the “colours and light of India” as the museum’s exhibition on “Ancient India: living traditions” draws to a close.
Singer Janet Jackson, artist Tracey Emin and actors James Norton and Kristin Scott Thomas attended the event, as did London mayor Sadiq Khan and former UK prime minister Rishi Sunak.
Helen Brocklebank, CEO of British luxury sector body Walpole and on the ball’s organising committee, said London’s social calendar had “always lacked a big crescendo moment… until now”.
Describing the ball as “Met Gala ambition with UK uniqueness”, Brocklebank said on social media that the event was “set to become London’s centrepiece”.
Highlighting the involvement of prominent writers, artists and architects, British Museum director Nicholas Cullinan had insisted the ball would stand apart from New York’s Met Gala.
The London event would be “a celebration not only of this extraordinary institution and our shared humanity, but of our city and country”, he said.
The ball was far cheaper than the Met Gala.
Tickets to the fundraiser were sold privately to around 800 people, costing GBP2,000 ($2,685) per head, compared to the whopping $75,000 price tag for a Met Gala pass.
Guests arrived to a drinks reception and speeches in the Great Court, before taking their seats for dinner at tables set among the museum’s collection — including in the Duveen Gallery which houses the disputed Parthenon Marbles.
Grammy-nominated sitarist Anoushka Shankar was scheduled to perform, while a silent auction was running through the evening.
Due to be on offer was a portrait of the highest bidder’s pet by British artist Emin and access to Coco Chanel’s Paris apartment, Cullinan told The Financial Times in the run-up to the ball.
The event was chaired by arts patron Isha Ambani, daughter of Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani and a director on the board of his oil-to-technology conglomerate Reliance.
The ball’s committee featured British veteran of the catwalk Campbell, Italian fashion designer Miuccia Prada, Spanish designer Manolo Blahnik and Bollywood actress Sonam Kapoor.
The museum said the ball, which coincided with the London Film Festival and Frieze Art Fair, would help raise “vital funds” for its international partnerships, including plans to host the 11th-century Bayeux Tapestry next year, on loan from France.
Like others in the UK, the British Museum has been hit by shrinking government subsidies over the last two decades, and is also likely eyeing new private funding streams for a massive GBP1-billion redevelopment project.
But it has also faced criticism from climate groups for a long-standing partnership with oil giant BP, after other institutions including the National Portrait Gallery in London cut ties.
“As the UK government continues to slash public funding for museums, the country’s cultural institutions are rushing to adopt US-style fundraising models, including galas and endowments,” museum reporter Jo Lawson-Tancred wrote on art market website Artnet.
Just this year, London’s National Gallery secured unprecedented private funding for its expansion following a fundraising campaign, while the Tate launched an endowment fund to secure its “long-term future”.
