This past weekend, the Art of Elysium hosted their annual Heaven Gala. The 2019 Gala was co-hosted by co-chairs Evangelo Bousis, Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix with Michael Muller serving as 2019’s visionary. The Art of Elysium was founded in 1997 to support artists who are working to help individuals going through difficult situations, such as hospitalization, illness, crisis, physical/mental illness, homelessness and much more. 110 community programs are offered a month, serving over 30,000 individuals a year. The gala HEAVEN is an art installation created by artists. Each event chooses one visionary to interpret their version of “Heaven on Earth” as it relates to the charities four main disciplines: Fashion & Design, Fine Arts, Music & Movement, and Theatre & Film. “Asking Michael to be the VISIONARY has been a long time coming. Watching him evolve as an artist and expand into the virtual reality space has just shown the infinite depth of his vision.” says Jennifer Howell Founder of The Art of Elysium.
The event also included an unveiling of Peter Dundas’s, of DUNDAS, latest collection. In addition, we had Peter Dundas’ Dundas fashion show on the runway. Jennifer continues telling us, “Johnny Wujek created the look for Michael’s candy girls. Melanie Pullen curated our light box installation. Beau did several neon pieces that were installed throughout the space. Our musical performances started off with Diane Warren’s Compton Kids Choir performance, then Phantogram, Linda Perry and Chuck D. Shirley Chung was our culinary artist and the food was designed to fit Michael’s idea of HEAVEN.” The Gala’s Master of Ceremonies was the mentalist, Oz Pearlman. The Gala is also an auction, for the first time, where the HEAVEN attendees will be able to bid for the first 48 hours and then the auction will be open to the public.
Each year the VISIONARY collaborated with other artists to create their ideal vision of HEAVEN. It is an extraordinary thing to behold, artists bringing their talents in to create HEAVEN for one night.
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Special Edition HEAVEN Lightboxes curated by Melanie Pullen
Melanie Pullen "Jumping Soldiers, #1" 2008 60 1/2" (H) X 120 1/2" (W)
By Shepard Fairey
Elysium Fields by the Fortoul Brothers
By Kysa Johnson
By Michael Muller
By Gregory Siff
Dundas x The Art of Elysium Sweatshirts, special edition of 1,000
For more information on [The Art of](https://www.theartofelysium.org) [Ely](https://www.theartofelysium.org/experienceheaven)[sium’s Heaven](https://www.theartofelysium.org)
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