The Crowd: Enjoying a fun night of ‘Pain’

The Orange County Museum of Art is set to begin a year of special events beginning in February, kicking off a season of cutting-edge art events in the OC.

Museum director Dennis Szakacs and his team are sponsoring an exhibition titled “Richard Jackson: Ain’t Painting A Pain.” The exhibition is sponsored and made possible by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Local art support is coming from the philanthropic Jean and Tim Weiss, Lenore and Bernard Greenberg, and additional donors including the Rennie Collection of Vancouver, the David Kordansky Gallery, and Hauser & Wirth.

To launch the exhibition, which will be on view Feb. 17 through May 5, Szakacs and the OCMA board of trustees will host a gala preview dinner Feb. 15. The Friday evening cocktail party and dinner will treat museum aficionados to a preview of OCMA’s retrospective on Jackson’s outrageously radical exploration of contemporary painting.

Works presented will include paintings never before seen in the United States, along with a mind-blowing new large-scale outdoor project by the artist.

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The Pacific Symphony is set to host its 2013 Pacific Coast Wine Festival on Feb. 9 at the Island Hotel, Newport Beach.

A wine auction and dinner will accompany extraordinary wine tasting from a list of wineries including Aubert Wines, Chateau Ducru-Beaucallou, Chateau Margaux, Harlan Estate, Hundred Acre and Peter Michael Winery, to name only a few. To learn more, go to https://www.pacificcoastwinefestival.com.

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Opera superstar Plácido Domingo joined Newport philanthropists Sebastian Paul and Marybelle Musco, of Big Canyon, and William Hall, of Chapman University, at a groundbreaking ceremony last year for the $64-million, 1,100-seat Marybelle and Sebastian P. Musco Center for the Arts at Chapman.

On Jan. 23, Chapman named its Conservatory of Music in honor of Hall, who is celebrating 50 years on campus. The naming of the William D. Hall and Marybelle and Sebastian P. Musco Conservatory of Music in conjunction with the Musco Center for the Arts was announced by Chapman President James Doti at a gala dinner on campus, attracting local Orange County leaders and more than 500 of Hall’s former Chapman students.

Hall was also named as dean of the Musco Center for the Arts. The educator commented, “This is an extraordinary honor. To share the naming of the conservatory with Marybelle and Paul is the greatest honor of all. It has been my pleasure and joy to serve Chapman University for these five decades, and I can tell you that I have no intention to slow down yet. There is far too much to do.”

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The Year of the Snake will be celebrated in grand style at South Coast Plaza with a spectacular Lunar New Year nod from Feb. 5 through 17 in Jewel Court featuring a towering snake, floral displays and much more, designed by Fiesta Parade Floats, a company perhaps known best for its work in the Rose Parade.

Twenty-five luxury retailers at the shopping resort will join in the celebration with in-store events refreshments and gifts-with-purchase. Roger Vivier, the Parisian luxury shoe and accessory brand, is featuring a Lunar New Year pilgrim clutch in two dramatic shades of red, which can be found exclusively at the South Coast Plaza boutique.

The much-in-demand MAC Cosmetics is offering an exclusive Year of the Snake makeup collection at South Coast Plaza. Tiffany & Co. will showcase the iconic Elsa Peretti 18-karat- gold snake-inspired necklace, which has been a design icon for many years. Hermes, Diane von Furstenberg, Gucci, J.Crew and Zara are among the other design boutiques participating in the Lunar New Year celebration.

Here is an insider tip for shoppers: Make sure you stop by any of the four concierge locations at South Coast Plaza between Feb. 7 and 17 as 2,000 lucky red envelopes will be given away containing 50 lucky winning tickets for luxury gifts.

THE CROWD runs Fridays. B.W. Cook is editor of the Bay Window, the official publication of the Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach.