LACMA’s 2022 Art + Film Gala to honor Helen Pashgian, Park Chan-wook

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced on Tuesday that it will honor sculptor Helen Pashgian and director Park Chan-wook at its 2022 Art + Film Gala. The 11th edition of the event, co-chaired by Eva Chow and Leonardo DiCaprio, will take place on Nov. 5.

Since its inception, the glitzy celebration has sought to highlight the intersectionality of art and film by bringing together the two worlds as only a Hollywood-adjacent party can. Artists previously honored include Betye Saar, Catherine Opie, Mark Bradford, Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Barbara Kruger, David Hockney, Ed Ruscha and John Baldessari. Filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, George Lucas, Kathryn Bigelow, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick and Clint Eastwood also have been honored.

Pashgian, an original member of Southern California’s 1960s Light and Space movement, has a notable history with LACMA. In 2014, the museum presented her first large-scale sculptural installation, “Helen Pashgian: Light Invisible. Untitled (2012-13).” The immersive installation, which is now part of LACMA’s permanent collection, consisted of 12 molded acrylic columns that filled an entire gallery.

Pashgian, 88, lives and works in Pasadena. She earned an undergraduate degree at Pomona College in Claremont before getting her master’s degree at Boston University in 1958. Over the years she has created a luminous body of work, crafting art out of reflective materials such as cast resin, fiberglass, plastic and coated glass.

Filmmaker Park Chan-wook is photographed at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Pashgian’s co-honoree, Park, is a South Korean director, screenwriter and producer who this year won the directing prize at the Cannes Film Festival with “Decision to Leave.” A romance wrapped in mystery, the film features a detective falling for a widow who is also the prime suspect in a murder he’s investigating.

Park’s breakout film, the thriller “Joint Security Area,” premiered in 2000. Since then he‘s seen critical and international success with films such as “Old Boy,” “Thirst” and “The Handmaiden,” all of which earned accolades at Cannes. In 2013, Park directed his first English-language film, “Stoker.”