Nathaniel Mary Quinn Longs to Linger Over A Good Meal
The forty-two-year-old artist put together his fantasy dinner party. His ideal evening—much like his work—reflects the boldly frenetic pace of modern time. Where else would you find Charlamagne Tha God, real gold trimmings, and... psychic servers?
How Come Not Me, 2019 © Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Photo: Rob McKeever, Courtesy Gagosian
Location: A swanky, upscale private restaurant in Paris; extraordinarily private, no media or news coverage, as though we are people having fun together in the privacy of our homes.
Guest list: My wife, Donna; my close friends Andre Wilkins and Gardy St. Fleur; Andre Wilkins’ lady, Mel; Mike, my nephew; Ashley Stewart of Gagosian Gallery; Mrs. Pilcher and Mrs. Jackson; Rhona Hoffman, Larry Gagosian, Almine Rech, Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn of Salon 94 gallery, Benjamin Trigano of M+B gallery, and Nikola Cernetic of Luce Gallery; Kathleen Madden, the writer and art critic, along with her husband, Paul; Richard Beavers of Richard Beavers Gallery in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn; Beth Rudin DeWoody; the artists Derek Fordjour, Hugo McCloud, and Natalie Frank; Rashid Johnson; Claire Gilman, chief curator of The Drawing Center; Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and James Baldwin; Barack and Michelle Obama; Jay-Z and Beyoncé; Kendrick Lamar; Al Green; Charlamagne Tha God of The Breakfast Club and Andrew Schulz of the podcast The Brilliant Idiots; Kid Fury and Crissle West; Robert Downey Jr.; Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys.
Menu and chef: Everything is available except for shellfish; superbly clean food prepared by the world’s best chef.
Table and chairs: One long table covered with white satin, and white chairs with gold rimming—real gold; nothing or nobody else is in the restaurant; everything crisp and clean, highly detailed, impeccably manicured.
Place settings: The appropriate bowls, plates, forks, and spoons most desired for a formal dinner party: gold forks and spoons, optic-white porcelain plates and bowls.
Flowers: White roses across the length of the dinner table.
Candles and lighting: White candles, all lit; low lighting from grand chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, perhaps three directly above the length of the dinner table, dropping from a ceiling with a height of 10 feet.
Linens and service: Crisp white linen; servers are concretely focused on making absolutely certain that guests are satisfied and served in such a way that guests do not have to make requests or inquiries, as though their minds are being read.
Music: Live jazz music played by the top youth musicians from Interlochen Arts Camp, in Michigan—half boys and half girls, and the entire band is completely diverse, as though the music is emanating from a rainbow of collective flesh. The rest of the music will spout from conversations at the dinner table.
