Julia Peyton-Jones, the co-director of the Serpentine Galleries, has a reputation for making spectacular things happen. So nobody was surprised that, just before her farewell shindig in the Serpentine’s pavilion, yesterday’s (20 June) monsoon-like deluge ceased and the evening was bathed in a balmy summer weather and later a rare, strawberry full moon.
It was very much a family affair, as Serpentine-loving artists—Anish Kapoor, Wolfgang Tillmans, Lynette Yiadom Boakye, Yinka Shonibare, Gustav Metzger and Richard Wentworth—to name but a few, were joined by museum directors—Nicholas Serota and Ralph Rugoff—and former Serpentine employees—the Whitney’s Donna De Salvo was flown in specially for the occasion. All gathered to salute the 25 years of JPJ's directorship, which saw the transformation of what was “a potting shed”—as described by the gallery’s co-vice chair Felicity Waley-Cohen in her celebratory speech—to the formidable art venue it is today.
Other fond words were spoken by co-director Hans-Ulrich Obrist, who recalled the “instant spark” he felt when first introduced to Peyton-Jones by Richard Wentworth in 1991 and who also revealed that she was now going to be resuming her interrupted practice as a painter of—apparently very good—abstract paintings. The grand dame herself (her status made official in the Queen’s Birthday Honours) then bade a fond and dignified farewell to all, before everyone got stuck in to magnums of Laurent Perrier champagne and queued up to substitute their faces—fairground style—for that of Peyton-Jones’s beloved terrier Charlie in a life-sized cutout of a JPJ plus her pooch, taken by Wolfgang Tillmans. Later everyone, and especially Dame Julia, hit the dance floor with a vengeance, proving that, even on a Monday night, the art world can still party like it’s 1991: the year that ushered in the legendary JPJ era…
