Funding Arts Broward (FAB), celebrating 20 years of preserving and cultivating the arts in Broward County, will present its sixth annual “Black & White: A Night At The Museum” special event on Monday, January 9, from 6 p.m. – 8 p.m. This cocktail party at NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale will feature exclusive exhibit tours, live entertainment by Dillard High School Center for the Arts students and DJ Israel Charles, Champagne, culinary delights, and a decadent dessert table. Guests are encouraged to dress in their favorite black and white cocktail attire.

Attendees will have the opportunity to experience Kathia St. Hilaire: Immaterial Being at the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale on a private tour by Bonnie Clearwater, director and chief curator of NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale. This exhibition addresses the artist’s personal transcultural experience and material experimentation. Her interest in matter and process goes beyond a formal, visual concern, as it simultaneously creates a space in which to address the concept of the painting’s surface as it connects to the understanding of skin, color and race. These critical notions are at the center of the artist’s practice and the broader Haitian narrative she seeks to tell.

West Palm Beach native Kathia St. Hilaire‘s work portrays tender images of family gatherings, children at play, celestial bodies, scenes of death, and distinct Haitian iconography. Her visual language is enhanced by the ornate, textured surfaces on which these images appear. The distinct constructions are composed through a lattice framework of linoleum panels, sewn together to form quilt-like formations resembling ceremonial Haitian Vodun flags. St. Hilaire refers to her signature surface making technique as reduction relief printing. This laborious crafting method combines an array of materials such as cosmetics, textiles, detritus, jewelry, enamels and metals, which together form a haptic, abstract collage. These intricate and ethereal backgrounds become the stage for the artist’s figurative imagery.

Included in this evening will be an exclusive tour of Scott Covert: I Had a Wonderful Life. I Had a Wonderful Life is the first solo museum exhibition dedicated to New Jersey-born artist Scott Covert. This presentation of Covert’s 40-year-long practice will center on his Monument Paintings, which the artist began making in 1985. Covert, a legendary figure within the eighties East Village art scene, forms his abstract compositions through the Victorian tradition of grave rubbing, in which an impression is lifted from the honorary reliefs on tombstones. With the cemeteries of the world serving as his itinerant studio, Covert has dedicated his life to visiting the resting places of what he calls “people of character.” The title of this exhibition is taken from the headstone of the quintessential aristocrat, Brooke Astor. These final words are not mournful, but joyous. Their uplifting sentiment resonates with Covert’s attitude towards his art. Each work is a celebration, a signifier of life, memory and profound experience.

Both exhibitions are curated by the Museum’s Bryant-Taylor Curator, Ariella Wolens.

“Black & White: A Night At The Museum” is open to FAB members, friends and public supporters of the arts. Tickets are $85 per person and are available at fabfunevents@gmail.com. For more information, please call (954) 353-7673 or email fundingartsbroward@gmail.com.