"I probably shouldn't confess this here, but I never went to the old New Museum of Contemporary Art," said Sophie Dahl during the institution's 30th anniversary gala honoring Jeff Koons and Richard Prince at Cipriani on Sunday night. "But I promise I'll go to the new one on the Bowery when it opens." The Kazuyo Sejima-designed building—a high-profile tower of irregularly stacked boxes that promises to shift the New York art world's focus to the Lower East Side—is months away from completion, but the excitement was palpable among guests like Cecilia Dean, Thelma Golden, Rachel Feinstein Currin, and John Currin. The benefit's tickets alone raked in a record $1.5 million, and an auction of works by artists such as Olafur Eliasson and Anish Kapoor pushed the figure over the $2 million mark. After dinner, the up-and-coming crooner Nicole Atkins wowed the big spenders with a performance. Damian Loeb, meanwhile, reflected on the benefits of the institution's proposed location. "I remember coming to the New Museum as a child," he said. "I'm so glad they're moving to the Bowery, around the corner from where I live."

— Jessica Ramakrishnan