"George Lindemann Journal by George Lindemann - "For a Day, a Reprieve From the New York Art Circuit" @nytimes By JULIA CHAPLIN
“Frieze week is a nightmare,” the artist Nate Lowman said. “To have the same limp handshake 400 times? I don’t go to anything except this.”
Mr. Lowman, wearing sneakers and a flannel shirt, was sitting last Sunday in the very civilized tent on the green polo fields in Greenwich, Conn., where the tycoon and art collector Peter Brant was holding his coveted luncheon reception.
“I don’t participate in many art-world functions,” said the actress Chloë Sevigny, who was lined up at a buffet that was set with platters of roasted lamb and fresh asparagus. “But this is different.” It was Mother’s Day, so she had her mother in tow.
Mr. Brant’s soiree, held twice a year in May and November to inaugurate exhibitions at the Brant Foundation Art Study Center, a private museum in a converted stone barn, has become a must stop on the bloated art circuit. Timed to fall on the Sunday between Frieze New York and the contemporary art auctions, the Brant event is welcome reprieve from the usual snarl of gallery openings, cocktail receptions, fancy dinners and after-parties, as the entire New York art world seems to decamp from Manhattan to the airy Connecticut estate for a day.
By noon, weary art worlders, with wispy designer clothes and sunglasses concealing hangovers, began arriving by Uber and private cars, Instagramming images of the brilliant sun refracted through Mr. Brant’s impressive lawn ornaments, including his 43-foot-tall “Puppy” topiary by Jeff Koons and a lumpy clay-like tower by Urs Fischer.
Mr. Brant was standing on the patio in a brown suit and tie, greeting guests like the art dealer Alberto Mugrabi, the gallerist Larry Gagosian and Leonardo DiCaprio, an art fair regular hidden under a baseball cap (and who declined to be photographed).
“When I was very young and started collecting, I used to go to Philip Johnson’s place in New Canaan, and it was always such a great treat to come out from the city to Connecticut and see some art,” Mr. Brant said. “And that’s really what this is about.”
It is also a family affair. Allison Brant, one of his nine children from two marriages, is the director of the Brant Foundation. “I think there’s about 1,000 people here today,” said Ms. Brant, 33, who wore a white Theory dress. “We always get a bigger crowd when the weather is good.”
Inside, the artist Dan Colen, who is the subject of the current retrospective, seemed to be rebelling against the country club spirit. Wearing a black T-shirt, dirty jeans and Yankees cap, Mr. Colen presided over his large-scale installations, including a curtain made of 150,000 glass crack pipes that hung from the ceiling. A cluster of his signature boulders defaced with graffiti and chewed-up gum filled another room. And under a skylight was a giant nest made of rubble, wires and junk, with candy-colored canaries flying about.
“The whole question is how do I go to a preppy Greenwich polo field and bring my attitude?” Mr. Colen said. That seemed to be a presiding concern for many guests who had gathered in the tent for lunch and Champagne. Among those sitting at the long tables were the artists Richard Prince, Marilyn Minter and Mr. Fischer, who was with his girlfriend, the actress and fashion designer Tara Subkoff. There were various members of the Schnabel family: Stella, Lola and Vito Schnabel (but no sign of Heidi Klum, whom Mr. Schnabel is reportedly dating). And there was the filmmaker and artist Harmony Korine, who had an opening the following night at the Gagosian Gallery that seemed to be on everyone’s list.
By midafternoon, a crowd had gathered on the lawn, spread on blankets and pillows around two 14-foot-tall box trucks that had been buried in the dirt, marring the otherwise bucolic landscape. Two female musicians who make up the band I.U.D. climbed atop the trucks and performed what Artforum once called “minimal, pounding, contagious noise-music.”
Among those listening were an expensive-looking group of young people led by Mr. Brant’s sons, Harry Brant and Peter Brant II. “I love this party,” said the younger Peter, who was wearing linen Lanvin and had his arm around a model. “I like to lie around on the polo field. The grass is particularly soft and well kept.”
By 5 p.m., the party had begun to wind down. Guests started spiking their fruit punch with Champagne and vodka for the ride back.
“Peter is a true patron,” said the gallerist Andrea Rosen, who was standing by the bar in a black Belstaff dress. “If you look around there’s tons of artists here. But no one would come all the way to Connecticut if the show were not great.”