2023 Gala + Art Auction

MOCAD’s 2023 Gala will honor and pay homage to three women who have made extraordinary contributions to contemporary arts and culture in our region and world.

Melanca Clark served as President and CEO of the Hudson-Webber Foundation from 2016 to 2023. Under Clark’s transformative leadership, the Foundation contributed more than $40 million to nonprofit organizations moving the city of Detroit forward. Clark upheld the grant-making organization’s longstanding pillars of giving – community and economic development, built environment, arts and culture, and safe and just communities. She previously served in several senior positions in the White House, including Chief of Staff of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services at the U.S. Department of Justice. Today she is dedicating significant time to honoring her dad Ed Clark’s legacy as one of the world’s foremost abstract painters.

Linda Dresner is a fashion icon and founding member of MOCAD’s Board of Directors. Her eponymously named boutique in downtown Birmingham served as the epicenter of fashion in our state before closing in 2021. Over 45 years in the fashion industry, Linda dressed the best of the best, former First Lady Jackie Kennedy among them, in Metro Detroit and beyond.

Leni Sinclair is an American Photographer and political activist whose commitment to arts and activism are clear in her stunning documentary photographs, which memorialize some of the most iconic pop culture moments of the 60s and 70s. They include iconic images of anti-racist protests at John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s free concert in 1971. She was featured in a beloved MOCAD solo-exhibition in 2021, Motor City Underground. She has written two books, The Detroit Jazz Who’s Who and Detroit Rocks! A Pictorial History of Motor City Rock and Roll 1965-1975. Additionally, MOCAD published a monograph on Sinclair’s work titled Motor City Underground: Leni Sinclair Photographs 1963-1978.