Last week, the Renaissance Society ditched its classic cathedral gallery space for a more surreal backdrop: Vertiport Chicago, an operational helicopter hub turned avant-garde stage. Moroccan-born, New York-based artist Meriem Bennani was the visionary behind RenBen 2025, an annual artist-steered gala that offers an electrifying blend of artistic spectacle, culinary innovation, and philanthropic spirit.
Guests were ushered into the hangar—transformed into Bennani’s whimsical universe—and greeted by custom-built grills, one in the shape of a ferris wheel, reminiscent of those that populate Oman’s amusement parks. These sculptural grills were more than artful centerpieces; they were functional tools for the night’s cuisine. Guest chef Balo Orozco, flown in from LA, teamed up with Jason Hammel of Chicago’s Lula Café to create a collaborative, interactive dining experience that was part dinner, part installation. In a playful twist, the grills were later auctioned off to benefit the Renaissance Society (philanthropist Abby Pucker scored the ferris wheel).
Guests—including artists Theaster Gates and Mario Ayala, gallerist Sadie Coles, musician Mia Carucci, CULTURED Young Artist Isabelle Frances McGuire, Frieze LA director Christine Messineo, and fashion designer Martine Rose—also took in invigorating North African dance by Esraa Warda and Fella Oudane, accompanied by Mohamed Amine Nechadi’s live darbuka.
Founded in 1915—during the First World War—by University of Chicago faculty looking for a space to engage unorthodox thinking about arts and culture, the non-collecting institution has always been a kind of artistic laboratory. In her remarks, the Renaissance Society’s Director and Chief curator Myriam Ben Salah’s speech struck a chord as it pivoted between vulnerability and vehemence, humor and critique. She admitted her faith in “hope” has frayed—“Sometimes it feels like hope only serves to preserve what’s already broken,’’she observed—yet reaffirmed an unshaken belief in art’s ability to keep us looking when turning away would be easier. Art, she insisted, “offers more—not optimism, but imagination. Not resolution, but the courage to linger in complexity.’’
Capping off the night, performer Yeni Real bewitched guests with a mesmerizing, loop-driven vocal performance paired with haunting visual theatrics—and the Renaissance Society raised more than $500,000.
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