Shinan: Barbara Amiel, queen and sober
Showing well-versed panache Saturday at one of the more superlative (and vodka-drenched) annuals in the gala calendar, she waved off the shots that seemed socially de rigueur that night, this being a Russian a-go-go dubbed the Chagall Ball , aka the black tie tie-in to the tremendous new exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
If nothing else it was a chance for the Lady, who's also a famed teetotaler, to show off the famous grit she's built over the years, or as she expressed in a column in Maclean's last year, "Those of you who drink, just about everyone it seems, have no idea how awful it is to go through life stone-cold sober, though I can well imagine how equally boring it makes me to you. "
As the ceremonial sips of Stoli coursed through the night, it loosened up the most swellegant of Torontonians, allowing, at the same time, a deviation from the normal rules of civility in the 21st century (when shots are typically reserved for the Jersey Shore species ). A test from God - could it be? - for the ever-fastidious Amiel, who's also previously described the "hours of agony" she's experienced "stranded at those dinners talking to people whose blood-alcohol count would kill any Breathalyzer and did not kill any intelligent conversation. "
Perhaps, then, she enjoyed the beef stroganoff, rendered by house chef Anne Yarymowich, and cast with crisp potato latke, baby ruby chard, wild mushroom and sour cream sauce? At the very least, it was something to tell her Vanity Fair-worthy a red Mae West-">husband, who on account of his latest exchange program, couldn't, of course, make it. (Nota bene: Babs was an age-defying eye-full this eve. Leading with the chest, she came in a red Mae West- ish wasp-waisted number of a ball gown, one that both Conrad and Chagall would have approved of!)
The Russian avant-garde do have their lure, don't they? Celebrating the massive, whimsy-whisked show - balloon'ed in Miles Austin Jerseys
from the Pompidou, it seemed - was an all-around jubilant crowd. The roof-fiddling Norman Jewison, there with his love (and honorary event co-chair, Lynne St. David Jewison), for instance. And Karen Kain. Deepa Mehta. Ben and Jessica Mulroney. Ed and Suzanne Rogers. Oh, and a late-arriving Kim Cattrall - getting as fast as she could off-stage, from the Private Lives run she's doing at the Royal Alex in order to be carted off to the AGO.
The early-bird modernist and the hero that art critic Robert Hughes once described as the "quintessential Jewish artist of the 20th century" is, in fact, proving to be more of a bait than King Tut himself. According to a figure from the AGO , Chagall and the gang brought out 4,727 members on the first full come-see the next day, compared to the 3,664 who came out to see old Tut during his close-up at the same space in 2009 - making this new show the highest one -day member preview since the gallery's Gehry-friendly reopening!
But back to Saturday night's fancy-pants gala, where membership truly did have its privileges. As the night was whittling away, and the vodka flowed, and the stage-ready guests echoed the kaleidoscope on the walls, one was reminded of the circus theme that Chagall returned to repeatedly in his work.
"For me, a circus is a magic show, disturbing, profound," he once explained. "I have always looked upon clowns, acrobats and actors as beings with a tragic humanity."