At last week’s Zoe Strauss opening gala, the Philadelphia Museum of Art was bustling with hip-hip hipsters mixing in with the ‘art set’ and museum mavens alike.

Michelle Friedman, Alexanderer Wildman, Alana Bograd	Jonathan Duelks and Gonzales	Mike Bosniak, Johanna Clark, Dan Murphy

A true ‘mixer’ at PMA brought art appreciators and artists from far and wide, and a diverse mix of Philadelphia’s museum and arts crowd with the hip young audience that follows Zoe Strauss. The event was a happy coincidence of the InLiquid Arts collaborative types, the ‘grown up’ art world of critics and appreciators who tend to mingle their way through these openings, and even some of the hallowed Women’s Committee and entourage.

The show features the work of Philadelphia photographer Zoe Strauss.  If you had not heard of Ms. Strauss’ important work until a few months ago, you are not alone.  However, among the art-conscious, she has been an emerging heroine for about a decade.  Her work depicts incredibly raw and real human life, much of which is captured here in Philadelphia.  The subject matter, in addition to how she looks at it, have made her annual shows under the overpasses of I-95 something of a growing cult phenomenon.

Thanks to some miracle of unforeseen miracles, the so-called “stodgy” Proper PMA elected to champion Ms. Strauss’ cause, and has given her a whole retrospective show, during her lifetime, in the city where her work is most poignant.  Congratulations are in order, whether owed to Ms. Strauss herself, Curator Peter Barberie and the PMA, some strange slip-up or stroke of luck, or the You-Know-Who Pew Charitable Trusts.

The opening ‘gala’ was, in fact, and opening “DJ/Dance Party,” one in a series during the run of the show.  Refreshments notably included mini cupcakes, soft pretzels, and potato chips, no doubt an unforeseen challenge in ‘common fare’ for Stephen Starr Catering, which handles the museum.  The sold-out dance party featured DJ David Dye of WXPN and music chosen by Ms. Strauss and her (ahem) wife Lynn Bloom.  Any questions?  Because it gets better.  Then music man Questlove of The Roots and the Conestoga Marching Band showed up in the Great Stair Hall to mix things up even more.

Justin & Andrea Shimeley	Markham Heid & Kelly Baldwin	Conor Corcoran & Dan Gross	Christina Kubiak & Steve Goldberg

Dave Sawyer, Debbie Cremin, Barbara Coxe, and Gary Turner	Click through to go to a glowing article on Fallon & Rosoff’s Artblog.

Tasha Doremus & Sebastian Le Clercq	Phylicia Ghee	Gabriel Martinez & Roxana Pérez-Méndez	Jeanette Lloyd

Having witnessed many performers and parties in this space, and having performed there myself, I must say this was the most ‘turned on its ear’ that I have seen things.  I imagine this event to be as close to the Belle Epoque as anything I have seen in recent years, watching the strong arms of a venerable institution reaching down and out to to pick and choose from the the frothy cream of the urban artistic counterculture, and throw a smashing party right in the parlor room.

Other guests not pictured: Tom Shiner & Abby Klein Shiner, Erich Weiss, Fran Dietrich and Tom Sokol, Richard Rinaldi, Seth Boyd, Jes Donnelly and Emily Malina, Tian Cai, Grace Marshall, Helen Cunningham, Kay Yu, Sophi Bryan, and the great Maida Milone, Linda and Gabriel Camargo, Monica Weymouth and Greg Buzby, Norman and Adam Ginsberg, Daphna Brown and Ranya Gordon, Jenessa Calvo-Friedman and Manya Scheps, Brooke Balint and Rick Vandzyra, Kate Brett and Jason Miller, Robert MacNeill and Brian Ashmead, Mike Fisher and Sanjaya Shunghi, Mark Castro and Eric Griffin, Brian Cahill and Mary Grace Wahl, Kristina Jenkins and Anna Schneider, Anthony Smyrski and Allison Dobkins, and Karen Shaffran and Said Gharrafi.

	Images of party guests were projected among Strauss images on screens throughout; the Great Stair Hall made for a busy dancefloor.

April Nelson, David DeLillo, Christina Carannante	Sandy Tilney, Dena Gerson, and PMA’s Gail Harrity

Virginia Jones & Sandy Stefanowicz	Alan & Petra Todd	Jennifer Bajczyk & Christine Fallstick

Matt Athaias Schwartz, Eva Talmadge, and Jayson Musson	Tracy Carter, Steve Carter, & Dana Spain