Last week in Brooklyn, New York Liberty owner Clara Wu Tsai and CULTURED Arts Editor-at-Large Sophia Cohen convened the city’s cultural vanguard at Barclays Center for an evening hosted in honor of artist LaToya Ruby Frazier. Earlier this year, the artist unveiled The Liberty Portraits: A Monument to the 2024 Champions—her first outdoor public work—that reimagines the plaza as a tribute to the women of the basketball team earlier. With cocktails in hand, the team’s players and art world figures gathered around to mark the occasion.
The Scene: An intimate gathering of cross-industry leaders, which blended the polish of an art opening with the urgency of a community forum, drawing together an array of voices for conversations about how the worlds of sports and art can continue to collaborate.
The Crowd: Athletes, artists, and cultural mainstays turned out in force to support Frazier, including WNBA players Natasha Cloud and Isabelle Harrison; Brooklyn Nets CEO Sam Zussman; artists Sarah Sze, Joan Jonas, Shaun Leonardo, and Dustin Yellin; gallerist Gavin Brown; public art advocate Susan Freedman; and curators Eric Shiner, Tina Kukielski, Drew Sawyer, and Jennifer Blessing.
The Occasion: The event marked the debut of Frazier’s first outdoor public art commission, which honors the Liberty’s 2024 championship season. Wu Tsai also announced that upcoming commissions from Sarah Sze and Rashid Johnson will continue Barclays Center’s public art programming.
Cause for FOMO: Frazier herself led a walkthrough of the installation—speaking about the scale and structure of the portraits, as well as the players’s personal stories, which were included next to their renderings.
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