LACE FOREVER: Supporter Preview and Artist Celebration #5

LACE FOREVER: Supporter Preview and Artist Celebration

Thursday, September 25, 6:30–11PM
Hosted by Lauren Bon and Metabolic Studio

Benefit Co-Chairs
Grace Oh, Chair, LACE Board of Directors
Ever Velasquez, Director, Charlie James Gallery

Benefit Planning Committee
Grace Oh, Jackie Amézquita, Young Joon Kwak, Sarah Russin, Selene Preciado, Fiona Crary

Join our community of supporters and artists for an intimate party to benefit LACE. As the city’s longest-running incubator for artistic experimentation, LACE champions artists, curators, and cultural workers who explore and defy boundaries through socially-engaged projects. We provide platforms within and beyond our space for diverse communities to connect deeply with challenging contemporary art. Benefit proceeds directly support LACE’s operations and programming, which platforms artists and communities currently under attack including LGBTQ+, disabled, immigrant, and BIPOC individuals. With the dismantling of federal funding for the arts and humanities, support for LACE’s Benefit is as urgent and impactful as ever.    

LACE is grateful to our event hosts Lauren Bon and Metabolic Studio. This year, our annual benefit takes place within a living work: a milpa of corn, beans, and squash encircling the Mother Well, a sculptural portal to the buried LA River and a proposal for urban renewal through nourishment and interdependence.

Donors and contributing auction artists are invited to a private reception at 6:30PM on Thursday, September 25, which includes an intimate walk-through of Lauren Bon’s personal studio, opened for the first time for this occasion. Guests will encounter The Smallest Sea with the Largest Heart, a sculpture of a blue whale’s heart that spent two years submerged in the Salton Sea following its 2023 Desert X debut—drawing solar energy and accumulating salt, memory, and myth. Also on view are sculptures formed from wild clay beneath the LA River’s concrete basin, along with drawings and indices from Bon’s decades-long, research-driven work with Metabolic Studio.

As Bon writes,  “I work a lot with index. The materials I use are not metaphor—they are remnants, records, and agents of change.”

This is not only a visit—it is a rare chance to step inside a living system of art, ecology, and repair.

At 8:30PM, additional friends of LACE are invited to join our donors and attend an Artist Celebration featuring a special performance by 011668 in the cornfield at Metabolic Studio in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Not a Cornfield project and dance the night away with live music and drinks by Chicas on the Rocks.  

Online auction powered by 

From September 12–September 26, 2025 art lovers and supporters can bid on 50 works by iconic artists such as Patrick Martinez, Roberto Gil de Montes, Lezley Saar, and Steve Roden, as well as exciting emerging Los Angeles artists such as Jackie Castillo, Maria Maea, and Ozzie Juarez.

Bidding opens exclusively on Artsy on September 12. Online auction closes on Friday, September 26 at 12:00PM PDT (3:00PM EDT).

Featured Artists

Tickets

This year your tax-deductible gift supports LACE’s move into our new home at 6522 Hollywood Blvd. and our ongoing programs including the Emerging Curators Program and Artist-in-Residence solo exhibition—your event contributions and artwork purchases make this work possible!

$5,000 LACE Visionaries
Tickets for 4 and invitation to the Supporter Preview including a Director’s toast, private tour of Lauren Bon’s studio at Metabolic, and a special gift from LACE. Visionaries are also invited to stay for the Artist Celebration. Visionaries support creating a warm and welcoming space for LACE’s signature programming and contribute to the building of the organization’s future home!

$2,500 LACE Vanguards
Tickets for 2 and invitation to the Supporter Preview including a Director’s toast, private tour of Lauren Bon’s studio at Metabolic, and a special gift from LACE. Vanguards are also invited to stay for the Artist Celebration. Vanguards support creating a warm and welcoming space for LACE’s signature programming and contribute to the building of the organization’s future home!

$500 LACE Supporters
Individual ticket to the Supporters Preview including a Director’s toast and private tour of Lauren Bon’s studio at Metabolic. Supporter preview ticketholders are also invited to stay for the Artist Celebration.

To save on online processing fees, you may reserve a space by emailing nadia@welcometolace.org and mailing your event check to: Sarah Russin, LACE, 6464 Sunset Blvd. Ste 1070, LA, CA 90028. Make checks payable to LACE. Zelle payment options also available. 

$25–100 Artist Celebration Ticket
Individual ticket for Artist Celebration. Ticket includes one complimentary drink. Get your ticket here!

Want to do more for LACE? Contact Executive Director, Sarah Russin, at sarah@welcometolace.org for more information about sponsorship opportunities at a higher level.

Board of Directors
Grace Oh, Board Chair, Benefit Committee Chair
Ken Gonzales-Day, Vice Chair
Clare Haggarty, Secretary,
Annie Brose, Treasurer
Jackie Amézquita, Benefit Committee Member
Tiffany Barber
Mark Steven Greenfield
Jerson Hondall
Young Joon Kwak, Benefit Committee Member
Michael Gonzales
Sarah Russin, Executive Director, Benefit Committee Member
Kathie Foley-Meyer, Chair Emerita

Check out photos from our previous auctions!
Renovate and Relaunch (2024)
Renovate and Relaunch (2023)
Renovate and Relaunch (2022)
ReEmerge (2021)
LACE Benefit Art Auction (2020)
LACE Benefit Art Auction (2019)
Trailblazing at 40 (2018)
LACE. Now. More than Ever. (2017)
LACE Benefit Art Auction (2016)