Honorees at TIME’s first TIME100 Art Impact Dinner gathered in New York City on October 5, bringing together artists, collectors, curators, museum executives, dealers, advisors, and cultural stewards.
asserted
Honorees → gather → artists
Seven different honorees offered toasts throughout the evening, each of them occupying a different space in the art world: businessman and art collector Ronald Lauder, art crime prosecutor Matthew Bogdanos, painter Amy Sherald, interdisciplinary artist Marie Watt, Citadel founder and collector Ken Griffin, and innovators Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz.
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each → offer → world
Here’s what each of them toasted to.
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each → ’ → them
Lauder, who was honored on the list for his collecting, philanthropy, and founding of Neue Galerie New York, began his toast by chronicling the beginning of his love of art at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) when he was just 12 years old.
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he → honor → Art
“On one of my trips, I encountered Picasso’s Guernica…although I didn’t understand it at first, I went home and learned about the Spanish Civil War,” Lauder said.
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Lauder → encounter → War
“I began to understand that art could do more than inspire—it could preserve history and expand the way we see the world.”
uncertain
we → begin → world
Lauder said he would sometimes spend an entire museum visit in one singular room, looking at each painting from every angle.
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he → say → angle
It was this devotion that launched his love of art.
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that → launch → art
Years later, he explained in the toast, MOMA is still an inspiration to him as an art collector, after he spent 10 years as chairman of the museum.
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he → explain → museum
“Today, it is especially meaningful to me that my daughter and grandsons are members of the museum’s International Council,” Lauder continued.
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Lauder → continue → Council
“From one generation to the next is what legacy means to me.”
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legacy → mean → me
Lauder also discussed the importance of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met), another iconic New York City museum, to his journey as an art lover.
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Lauder → discuss → lover
At 14, his parents took him to a dinner there honoring a gift from art collector Florence Gould.
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parents → take → Gould
“At my table, I was surrounded by great collectors, and I began imagining what a life would be in collecting art, and what it might look like,” he said.
uncertain
he → surround → what
“In many ways, Florence Gould gave me permission to follow my curiosity wherever it led.”
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it → give → curiosity
The final museum he toasted was the one he owns, the Neue Galerie New York, which showcases early 20th-century German and Austrian art on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
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which → toast → Manhattan
“The Neue Galerie opened just months after September 11 [2001], when New York was still reeling,” he recalled.
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he → open → September
“And yet people came.
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people → come → ?
They stood in lines around the block.
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They → stand → block
It reminded me that art offers something we need in difficult moments: connection, continuity, and renewal.”
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we → remind → moments
He finished his toast by describing himself and other collectors as “custodians” of the art that they live with.
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they → finish → that
“I’d like to raise a glass to the artists, and the institutions that preserve their work,” he said, “and the generations who carry that legacy forward.”
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who → like → legacy
Matthew Bogdanos, a retired Marine and chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, has spent more than two decades hunting down lost and stolen art works and repatriating this art to almost 40 other countries.
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Bogdanos → spend → countries
In his speech, Bogdanos toasted to the fellow art-crime fighters in the world, claiming that whatever he has accomplished in his career has been only because of the “courage, passion, and dedication” of people across the world working with him.
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accomplished → toast → him
“You should share the passion and action of his time, Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, ‘at peril of being judged not to have lived.’
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Holmes → share → peril
” I can tell you from having worked with these people for decades now, Justice Holmes would be proud of them, and so am I, and I hope now so are you,” Bogdanos said.
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Bogdanos → tell → them
He then toasted to the cultural artifacts he works to find and repatriate, each of which he says is a “living breathing testimony to our shared cultural heritage.”
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he → toast → heritage
“I have seen them work their cathartic spell across cultures, across ethnicities, across religion,” he said.
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he → see → religion
This shared heritage that we are reminded of in these artifacts provides healing in a divisive world, Bogdanos added.
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Bogdanos → remind → world
“Respecting the cultural heritage from the very dawn of civilization offers perhaps the best hope we have in overcoming the reductive dualism that is tearing apart our world today by reminding us of our common aspirations, of our common humanity, of our common attempts to make sense of the world we inhabit the cosmos surrounding,” he said.
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he → respect → cosmos
He finished his toast by pledging to continue his work until he felt that he deserved the honor of being on the TIME 100 list.
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he → finish → list
In her toast, Sherald began by saying that the room felt like a “family reunion,” shouting out other artists in the room that inspire her.
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that → begin → her
She mused on the meaning of the word “influence,” and how it differs in the art world than any monetary or numeric goal.
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it → muse → goal
“You can measure sales.
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You → measure → sales
You can count exhibitions, books, and audiences.
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You → count → exhibitions
You can count followers.
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You → count → followers
You can count the number of people who walk through the doors of a museum,” she said.
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she → count → museum
“ But I’m not sure any of those things tell us very much about influence, because influence is often much quieter than that.”
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influence → ’m → that
She explained how influence for many artists and art-enthusiasts comes in smaller moments—whether it’s an artist seeing another artist’s work, a teacher sharing advice that a pupil remembers for decades to come, or a curator “putting two things next to each other and changing the way we understand both of them.”
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we → explain → them
In this room alone, Sherald explains, are many people who have built institutions, supported artists, and changed the way the world saw art.
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world → explain → art
…and 49 more, not listed.
The Aporia
