Champagne, celebrities and artefacts: British Museum hosts first lavish ‘Pink Ball’ fundraiser | British Museum

THere you will be served champagne, of course, dancing, fine Indian food served alongside Parthenon marbles and cocktails mixed in front of the Renaissance treasures of Waddesdon Estate. And everywhere – from the lights that illuminate modern Greek architecture, to the carpet on which guests arrive, to the sparkling clothes they are asked to wear – is a very special shade of pink.

When the British Museum opens its doors on Saturday evening for its first “Pink Ball,” it will not only host a huge and lavish ball, but it will also inaugurate what its director, Nicholas Cullinan, has described as a “groundbreaking national event” that he hopes will become as important to his institution’s finances as it is to the social calendar of London’s elite.

Eight hundred invited guests each paid £2,000 to celebrate alongside some of the world’s most exciting artefacts and a roll call of A-listers from the worlds of fashion, art and culture: Naomi Campbell and Alexa Chung, Miuccia Prada and Manolo Blahnik, Sir Steve McQueen, Sir Grayson Perry and Dame Kristin Scott Thomas.

In addition to the facade, there will be copper. The event is co-chaired by Isha Ambani, “the multi-hyphenate Indian businesswoman, philanthropist and patron of the arts,” who also happens to be the daughter of Asia’s richest man. Mukesh Ambani’s energy and petrochemical conglomerate, Reliance Industries, sponsored the museum’s current exhibition (in pink) on ancient India.

Ambani and Cullinan, a noted networker, dug through their contact records: Also listed as “panelists” for the event were Kumar Mangalam Birla, the billionaire chairman of the Indian manufacturing conglomerate Aditya Birla Group, Rajib Samdani, the Bangladeshi industrialist and art collector, and “lifestyle pioneer” Aisha Bharti Pasricha, daughter of Indian billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal.

They, along with a long list of businessmen, arts patrons and other investors, are the ones organizers hope will make big bids in lots of auctions including a pet portrait painted by Dame Tracey Emin, the museum’s curator, or an exclusive tour of Coco Chanel’s apartment at 31 Rue Cambon in Paris. Cullinan said about 70% of attendees had no previous relationship with the museum; Something he would definitely love to change.

While previous museum directors might have been more cautious about the dirty work of collecting objects to keep the lights on, Cullinan was frank that the museum’s financial needs “require you to be quite flexible in your thinking, and somewhat entrepreneurial.”

It is an acute challenge for all institutions, given that core funding for arts and cultural organizations will fall by 18% between 2010 and 2023. The funding climate is “really bad,” according to Leslie Ramos, a philanthropy consultant who works with arts organizations. “I don’t think holding a dance party or a series of parties will be enough to solve the problem,” she said.

She added that Cullinan is a “brilliant fundraiser” and had carefully organized his pitch at the end of the Frieze art fair, when London is buzzing with arts investors. “When you study art history, you don’t necessarily know that you’ll also need to learn fundraising skills if you want to run a museum. It’s rare to have that dual experience, but it’s needed now more than ever.”

Thomas Marks, a strategic consultant who works with museums, agrees. “It is certainly imperative these days that museum leaders and senior leadership teams embed a development mindset into their organizations,” he said. “Ultimately, the conversation about funding is going to be front and center in the day-to-day work of any museum at this point.”

However, Cullinan’s “flexibility of thought” inevitably attracted criticism. The museum already has a £50m, 10-year deal with its long-term partner BP to help fund a “masterplan” for the redevelopment, and the campaign group “Unpolluted Culture” has criticized the Ambani family association, “whose wealth comes in large part from Reliance Industries’ fossil fuel and petrochemical projects”.

A museum spokesperson said: “We are not immune to the changing conversations taking place around care, which is why the ball is so important, because it transports us to a different environment and makes us more dynamic and able to meet our future needs.”

They said the money raised by the event will be spent on international programs, including partnerships in Ghana and Iraq and bringing the Bayeux Tapestry to the museum.

By this time next year, the tapestry will be in place — an obvious inspiration for the theme of next year’s ball, confirming that the event is here to stay, Cullinan said. Expect more champagne, more celebrities and more rich people.