NEW YORK.- The New Museum of Contemporary Art will host its Annual Gala and Live Auction on Sunday, April 17, 2004, at the newly reopened Cipriani Wall Street at 55 Wall Street. Sir Elton John will serve as Honorary Chair for the event, which will honor Cindy Sherman, one of the world’s leading visual artists. Renowned film director and photographer John Waters will pay tribute to Cindy in a special introduction. The Co-Chairs for the event are Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn and Nicolas Rohatyn.

The Annual Gala and Live Auction is a great opportunity for contemporary art lovers to support the New Museum, which is breaking ground this year for a new home on the Bowery, and is one of the liveliest events of the season. As in past years, this year’s dinner will be followed by a live auction of artwork by top contemporary artists. All of the works included in the auction will be on view at the New Museum at 556 West 22nd Street and at www.newmuseum.org from April 9-16, 2005. The Live Auction will be conducted by Simon de Pury, Chairman of Phillips, de Pury & Company. Bloomberg is the Presenting Sponsor of the 2005 Gala and Live Auction.

The Honorary Committee for the event includes Sarah Charlesworth, Gregory Crewdson, Carroll Dunham and Laurie Simmons, Yvonne Force and Leo Villareal, Jenny Holzer, Sue Hostetler, Marc Jacobs, Louise Lawler, Dominique Lévy and Dorothy Berwin, Maya Lin and Daniel Wolf, Ninah and Michael Lynne, Martin Margulies, Jennifer McSweeney and Peter Reuss, Metro Pictures, Carolina Nitsch and Dieter von Graffenreid, Nessia Pope, Aby J. Rosen, Per and Helena Skarstedt and Neda Young. The Art Committee is chaired by Nancy Portnoy and also includes Gavin Brown, Mary Boone, Ellyn Dennison, Corinna Durland, Ellen Kern, Rachel Lehmann, Toby Devan Lewis, David Maupin and Perry Rubenstein, among others.

The thirteen works included in the Live Auction are by Louise Bourgeois, Karin Davie, Verne Dawson, Peter Hujar, Glenn Ligon, Robert Mapplethorpe, Paul McCarthy, Donald Moffett, Yasumasa Morimura, Robin Rhode, Yinka Shonibare, Jennifer Steinkamp and Sue Williams.

By turning the camera on herself, Cindy Sherman has become one of the most respected artists alive. Although she plays a starring role in the majority of her photographs, they are most definitely not self-portraits. Rather, Sherman uses herself as a vehicle to explore a variety of issues and themes in the modern world. It is through her consistent and astonishing work that she has contrived to raise challenging and important questions about the role and representation of women in society, the media, the status of photography and the nature of the creation of art. Sherman’s work has been featured in museums and galleries around the world.

The monumental career of international singer/songwriter and performer Sir Elton John has spanned more than three decades. He is one of the top-selling solo artists of all time with over 200 million records sold worldwide. Sir Elton has won a wide array of industry awards including Grammys, Tonys and an Oscar and continues to add innovative work to his personal repertoire of 35 gold and 25 platinum albums. In December of 2004, Sir Elton received the Kennedy Center Honor for his lifetime contributions to American culture and excellence through the performing arts. His commitment to the fight against AIDS led to the inception of the Elton John AIDS Foundation (Los Angeles and London) which has dispersed a combined total of grants surpassing $50 million to date making the Elton John Aids Foundation one of the largest public non-profit organizations in the AIDS arena. In 1998, he was knighted by the Queen of England who honored him with the title Sir Elton John, CBE. Sir Elton John has one of the leading private collections of vintage modernist and contemporary photographs in the world.

John Waters emerged as a controversial filmmaker in the late 1960’s, when he began producing short films with an entourage of actors and crew known as Dreamland Studios, a diverse group that characterized the marginalized figures of society highlighted in Waters’s films. His exaggerated but loving depiction of people living on the fringes of normal American life persisted well into the 1980’s and 1990’s, when he began producing popular films such as of Hairspray and Serial Mom. In addition to making films and artworks, Waters has contributed essays and articles to national publications and has published five books. His photographic works were the subject of an exhibition at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in 2004.