Gala 25
Socrates Sculpture Park
Annual Benefit Party
HONORING
Nat Oppenheimer
Senior Vice President
Buildings Sector, TYLin
Nat Oppenheimer leads the Buildings sector at TYLin, and in his leadership role at Silman, was critical in the development of The CUBES. He has extensive experience in the areas of new construction, renovation, sustainable engineering, and historic preservation, as principal in charge of much of the firm’s institutional, private residential, and educational work. With a deep concern for working conditions for people around the world, Nat has been an active member of the Grace Farms Foundation Architecture + Construction Working Group, an interdisciplinary group of A/E leaders who are advocating to end the use of modern slavery in the supply chain and labor for the built environment. Nat is also devoted to engineering education and teaches at the Graduate School of Architecture at Princeton University. He has also taught courses at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, and at Parsons, the New School for Design.
LOT-EK
Design and Architecture Firm
LOT-EK is a design studio based in New York, known for its innovative approach to architecture and design through the adaptive reuse of industrial materials. Founded in 1993 by Italian architects Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano, LOT-EK has been involved in a wide range of projects, including residential, commercial, and institutional projects both in the US and internationally. LOT-EK has also undertaken projects for major cultural institutions and museums, such as MoMA, the Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim, the MAXXI and many more. The feature length documentary about their work, We Start with the Things We Find by Thomas Piper, premiered in 2023. LOT-EK is the award-winning designer of Socrates’ permanent structure, The CUBES, which was opened April 2024.
Alison Saar
Artist
Alison Saar, a Los Angeles-based sculptor, mixed-media, and installation artist, is a force in public art. She has produced many monuments including Swing Low, the Harriet Tubman Memorial (2007) in New York City; Embodied (2014) at the Los Angeles County Hall of Justice; and To Sit A While (2022) a monument to Lorraine Hansberry in Chicago. Saar has received multiple awards and honors, and most recently was selected by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the City of Paris to produce Salon, in honor of the 2024 Olympic Games. She has exhibited for decades at galleries and museums, including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her art is represented in the collections of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Museum of Modern Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among numerous others. Saar exhibited her work Fanning the Fire at Socrates in 1988, which is now in the collection of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She has been a Board member of Socrates Sculpture Park since 2018.
HONORING
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Senior Vice President

Buildings Sector, TYLinNat Oppenheimer leads the Buildings sector at TYLin, and in his leadership role at Silman, was critical in the development of The CUBES. He has extensive experience in the areas of new construction, renovation, sustainable engineering, and historic preservation, as principal in charge of much of the firm’s institutional, private residential, and educational work. With a deep concern for working conditions for people around the world, Nat has been an active member of the Grace Farms Foundation Architecture + Construction Working Group, an interdisciplinary group of A/E leaders who are advocating to end the use of modern slavery in the supply chain and labor for the built environment. Nat is also devoted to engineering education and teaches at the Graduate School of Architecture at Princeton University. He has also taught courses at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, and at Parsons, the New School for Design.
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Design and Architecture Firm
LOT-EK is a design studio based in New York, known for its innovative approach to architecture and design through the adaptive reuse of industrial materials. Founded in 1993 by Italian architects Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano, LOT-EK has been involved in a wide range of projects, including residential, commercial, and institutional projects both in the US and internationally. LOT-EK has also undertaken projects for major cultural institutions and museums, such as MoMA, the Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim, the MAXXI and many more. The feature length documentary about their work, We Start with the Things We Find by Thomas Piper, premiered in 2023. LOT-EK is the award-winning designer of Socrates’ permanent structure, The CUBES, which was opened April 2024.
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Artist
Alison Saar, a Los Angeles-based sculptor, mixed-media, and installation artist, is a force in public art. She has produced many monuments including Swing Low, the Harriet Tubman Memorial (2007) in New York City; Embodied (2014) at the Los Angeles County Hall of Justice; and To Sit A While (2022) a monument to Lorraine Hansberry in Chicago. Saar has received multiple awards and honors, and most recently was selected by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the City of Paris to produce Salon, in honor of the 2024 Olympic Games. She has exhibited for decades at galleries and museums, including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her art is represented in the collections of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Museum of Modern Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among numerous others. Saar exhibited her work Fanning the Fire at Socrates in 1988, which is now in the collection of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She has been a Board member of Socrates Sculpture Park since 2018.
SPEAKERS
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Brooke Davis Anderson is the inaugural Executive Director of VIA Art Fund. Previously she held the roles of Executive Director at Prospect New Orleans and Edna S. Tuttleman Director of the Museum at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in Philadelphia. At LACMA, she served as Deputy Director of Curatorial Planning, where she oversaw the Watts Towers Conservation.
Anderson's career started at Winston-Salem State University (a noted HBCU in North Carolina) as the inaugural museum director of the Diggs Gallery, where she first met Alison Saar and Betye Saar, and where she cultivated her expertise in African American art as well as self-taught and vernacular art.
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Artist, designer and environmentalist, Maya Lin interprets the natural world through science, history, politics, and culture, and has had a singular career spanning art and architecture.
From the Vietnam Memorial which she designed as an undergraduate student at Yale, to The Civil Rights Memorial in Alabama, and the Women’s Table at Yale, she has created Memorials that address critical social and historical issues and made them part of the American landscape.
Lin’s multi-sited and expansive project What Is Missing? (2009–), her final (albeit ongoing) memorial serves to raise awareness of our shared losses through environmental degradation.
Lin was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, by President Barack Obama in 2016.
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Mabel O. Wilson is the Nancy and George Rupp Professor of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation and Chair of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University.
With her practice Studio&, she was a member of the design team for the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at UVA. The Venice Architecture Biennale, SFMoMA, and the Art Institute of Chicago have exhibited her works.
Her books include Negro Building: Black Americans in the World of Fairs and Museums and the co-edited volume Race and Modern Architecture. For MoMA, she co-curated Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America (2021). She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
SPEAKERS
Brooke Davis Anderson
Brooke Davis Anderson is the inaugural Executive Director of VIA Art Fund. Previously she held the roles of Executive Director at Prospect New Orleans and Edna S. Tuttleman Director of the Museum at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in Philadelphia. At LACMA, she served as Deputy Director of Curatorial Planning, where she oversaw the Watts Towers Conservation.
Anderson's career started at Winston-Salem State University (a noted HBCU in North Carolina) as the inaugural museum director of the Diggs Gallery, where she first met Alison Saar and Betye Saar, and where she cultivated her expertise in African American art as well as self-taught and vernacular art.
Maya Lin
Artist, designer and environmentalist, Maya Lin interprets the natural world through science, history, politics, and culture, and has had a singular career spanning art and architecture.
From the Vietnam Memorial which she designed as an undergraduate student at Yale, to The Civil Rights Memorial in Alabama, and the Women’s Table at Yale, she has created Memorials that address critical social and historical issues and made them part of the American landscape.
Lin’s multi-sited and expansive project What Is Missing? (2009–), her final (albeit ongoing) memorial serves to raise awareness of our shared losses through environmental degradation.
Lin was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, by President Barack Obama in 2016.
Mabel O. Wilson
Mabel O. Wilson is the Nancy and George Rupp Professor of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation and Chair of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University.
With her practice Studio&, she was a member of the design team for the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at UVA. The Venice Architecture Biennale, SFMoMA, and the Art Institute of Chicago have exhibited her works.
Her books include Negro Building: Black Americans in the World of Fairs and Museums and the co-edited volume Race and Modern Architecture. For MoMA, she co-curated Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America (2021). She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Join us for our 2025 Gala on June 5!
Join us for our 2025 Gala on June 5!
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
6:30pm
Custom Cocktails, Snacks, and Dinner Buffet
Cocktail bar by Diamond Dogs
Taco Station courtesy of Los Tacos No. 1
Churrascaria Grill by R. Cano Events
7:30pm
Honoree Program
Presentation of the Socrates Heavyweight Award
8:30pm
Dancing & Dessert
DJ Vinyl Richie welcomes you to the dancefloor!
9:30pm
Party Concludes
ABOUT
Socrates
Sculpture Park
Socrates Sculpture Park is a community engaged New York City waterfront park dedicated to supporting artists in the production and presentation of public art.
Socrates Sculpture Park was an abandoned riverside landfill and illegal dumpsite for decades leading up to 1986 when a coalition of artists and community members, under the leadership of artist Mark di Suvero, transformed it into an open studio and exhibition space for artists. Today, Socrates is an internationally renowned outdoor museum and a designated New York City public park.
Known for fostering ambitious and visionary artworks, Socrates has presented more than 1,200 artists on its five waterfront acres, providing them the financial support, materials, equipment, and space necessary to create large-scale works in the public realm. The Park is a center of cultural programming, a producer of contemporary exhibitions, a presenter of a multi-disciplinary performance series, and an arts educator. Socrates’ existence is based on the belief that reclamation, revitalization and creative expression are essential to the survival, humanity and improvement of our urban environment.
2025 Annual Exhibition:
Up/Rooted
Natalia Nakazawa, Pioneers Go East Collective, Rowan Renee, Catherine Telford-Keogh, and Zipporah Camille Thompson
Artist Fellows, 2025
Up/Rooted explores the complexities of uprooting species for long-term sustainability and resilience. The term “uprooted” evokes the tension between dislocation and resilience. “Up” signifies the act of lifting away, while “root” refers to the hidden systems below the ground—anchoring life and absorbing essential nutrients. This duality invites us to reflect on the implications of relocation and adaptation, exploring how when done thoughtfully it can foster new growth and understanding. In what ways can we foster regeneration while acknowledging and mitigating the losses within our ecological and social landscapes? How might we navigate the delicate balance between ecological preservation and community needs to create a more resilient future?
Spacetime C.C.
Spacetime is the studio of the artist Mark di Suvero. The buildings were built in the 1920s and the 1930s and were originally used to unload and store bricks that were manufactured up the Hudson River. By the time di Suvero saw the structures in 1980 they were close to being condemned. He began work to repair the buildings and immediately invited other artists to come work in the space and use his tools. Artists such as Ursula von Rydingsvard, Linda Fleming and Meg Webster made work in the space under the auspices of his Athena Foundation. Five years later, di Suvero and Enrico Martignoni applied to New York City to lease the land that became Socrates Sculpture Park. Artists continue to have studio spaces at Spacetime to this day.
Learn more about Spacetime C.C.
SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR BENEFIT COMMITTEE
as of June 2, 2025
2025 STEERING COMMITTEE
Howard Axel
Heather Bhandari
Sanford Biggers
Peter Coffin
Anita Contini and Steve Van Anden
Lucas Cooper and Jane Benson
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Ivana Mestrovic, President
Patton Hindle, Secretary
Suzy Delvalle, Treasurer
LEADER
Mark di Suvero
Agnes Gund
BENEFACTOR
Paula Cooper Gallery
Sidney E. Frank Foundation
Bloomberg Philanthropies
PATRON
Vivien and David Collens
William Floyd
The J. Paul Getty Trust
Maya Lin Studio
Los Tacos No. 1
Julie Mehretu
Richard and Ronay Menschel
Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger
Richard Salomon Family Foundation
Risk Strategies
Sciame Construction LLC
The Suna Family
TYLin
Veri di Suvero
Neil Hamamoto
Fitzhugh Karol
Anastasia Kidd
Charlotte Kidd
Michelle Coffey
Malaika Langa
Nat Oppenheimer
Alison Saar
Kimberly Strong
SUPPORTERS
Sarah Arison
Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
Anita Contini and Steve Van Anden
Lucas Cooper and Jane Benson
Suzy Delvalle
Beth DeWoody
John Hatfield and Amy Wolf
Highline Construction Group
Fitzhugh Karol
Robin and David Key
LA Louver Gallery
Leroy Street Studio
Reis Contracting
Alison Saar
Sawyer | Benson
Silberman Zaretsky PC
Sirovich Family
FRIENDS
Jonathan Axel
Spencer Bailey
Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners
Heather and Rishi Bhandari
Amy Cappellazzo and Joanne Rosen
Andrew and Meaghan Cheung
DeSimone Consulting Engineers
James Eastman
Jorge Fontanez
Bob and LouAnn Frome Moore
Russell Greenberg
Neil Hamamoto
Patton Hindle
Brooke Kamin Rapaport
Anastasia Kidd
Anna and Peter Levin
Martin Z. Margulies
Jill and Peter Kraus
Elizabeth Metcalf
Maas Works
Margaret Morton
Maxwell Oglesbee
Michael Paley
Paula Pelosi
Charles Renfro
RKLA Studio Landscape Architecture LLP
Aaron Schiller
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
Phil Schmerbeck
John P. Stern
Tebbens Steel
Margaret Sullivan
Thornton Masetti
Craig Tooman
Pamela Torres
Claire Weisz
Sherri Wolf
Lisa Kim
Jeffrey Meris
Ivana Mestrovic
Claire Weisz
Hank Willis Thomas
Iris Rodriguez-Rosa, Ex Officio
Commissioner, NYC Parks
Mark di Suvero, Chair Emeritus
MEDIA SPONSOR
WNYC
SPECIAL THANKS
Diamond Dogs
Andrew Leonardo
Christian Pineda
Sanford’s Astoria
Spacetime C.C.
IN-KIND SUPPORT
Casa Mexico
Plant Specialists
SingleCut Beersmiths
SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR BENEFIT COMMITTEE
as of June 2, 2025
-
Howard Axel
Heather Bhandari
Sanford Biggers
Peter Coffin
Anita Contini and Steve Van Anden
Lucas Cooper and Jane Benson
Veri di Suvero
Neil Hamamoto
Fitzhugh Karol
Anastasia Kidd
Charlotte Kidd
Lisa Kim
Jeffrey Meris
Ivana Mestrovic
Claire Weisz
Hank Willis Thomas -
Ivana Mestrovic, President
Patton Hindle, Secretary
Suzy Delvalle, Treasurer
Michelle Coffey
Malaika Langa
Nat Oppenheimer
Alison Saar
Kimberly Strong
Iris-Rodriguez-Rosa, Ex Officio Commissioner, NYC Parks
Mark di Suvero, Chair Emeritus -
Mark di Suvero
Agnes Gund -
Paula Cooper Gallery
Sidney E. Frank Foundation
Bloomberg Philanthropies -
Vivien and David Collens
William Floyd
The J. Paul Getty Trust
Maya Lin Studio
Los Tacos No. 1
Julie Mehretu
Richard and Ronay Menschel
Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger
Richard Salomon Family Foundation
Risk Strategies
Sciame Construction LLC
The Suna Family
TYLin -
Sarah Arison
Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
Anita Contini and Steve Van Anden
Lucas Cooper and Jane Benson
Suzy Delvalle
Beth DeWoody
John Hatfield and Amy Wolf
Highline Construction Group
Fitzhugh Karol
Robin and David Key
LA Louver Gallery
Leroy Street Studio
Reis Contracting
Alison Saar
Sawyer | Benson
Silberman Zaretsky PC
Sirovich Family -
Jonathan Axel
Spencer Bailey
Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners
Heather and Rishi Bhandari
Amy Cappellazzo and Joanne Rosen
Andrew and Meaghan Cheung
DeSimone Consulting Engineers
James Eastman
Jorge Fontanez
Bob and LouAnn Frome Moore
Russell Greenberg
Neil Hamamoto
Patton Hindle
Brooke Kamin Rapaport
Anastasia Kidd
Anna and Peter Levin
Martin Z. Margulies
Jill and Peter Kraus
Elizabeth Metcalf
Maas Works
Margaret Morton
Maxwell Oglesbee
Michael Paley
Paula Pelosi
Charles Renfro
RKLA Studio Landscape Architecture LLP
Aaron Schiller
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
Phil Schmerbeck
John P. Stern
Tebbens Steel
Margaret Sullivan
Thornton Masetti
Craig Tooman
Pamela Torres
Claire Weisz
Sherri Wolf -
WNYC
-
Diamond Dogs
Andrew Leonardo
Christian Pineda
Sanford’s Astoria
Spacetime C.C. -
Casa Mexico
Plant Specialists
SingleCut Beersmiths
FURTHER DETAILS
Dress Code
Friendly reminder that this event is rain or shine. Please wear outdoor festive attire.
Transportation
Our venue is located at 30-40 Vernon Boulevard (between 30th Road & 30th Drive).
NYC Ferry to Astoria Landing
N, W to Broadway Station
Q103 to Vernon Blvd/30th Rd