A human rainbow to celebrate SFMOMA

Guests at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s Birthday Bash on Wednesday, April 26, had been asked to wear monochromatic clothing and in the center of the museum’s second-floor lobby, stood Heiko Greb in all yellow and Philip Duffy in all red. Greb was wearing an insect costume with a full mask punctuated by a zipper for a mouth; Duffy was in a traditional-looking men’s suit. Both outfits were made of industrial tape, and they were spectacular.

The two were part of a cluster of friends that included Jordan Kim (in a coral-colored frock), and as I (in blue African tunic and pants) began talking with Greb, Kim came over and invited blue to join their spectrum. Within a few minutes, other monochromatic revelers were invited to join in the human interpretation of ROYGBIV. Cell phones were handed to friends to capture the lineup, as laughing and delighted strangers, turned — with arms around each other’s shoulders and waists — into an impromptu rainbow.

The party, conceived, designed and delivered by Stanlee Gatti, began at 6:31 p.m. with the arrival of guests, who after preliminary grazing and guzzling (thank you, McCall’s waitstaff ) made their way from that lobby through the doorway’s hanging rain forest of yellow plastic strips to viewing places on the landing outside and on the steps down to Howard Street. At the foot of the steps, in a space between the museum and the building next door, at about 6:45, artist Judy Chicago’s “Be No More” installation — flares spelling the word “TRUTH” set off amid clouds of dry ice — was set off.

The visual and atmospheric effects were dramatic. Brisk winds sent the dry ice vapors up the stairs, and people began coughing and covering their mouths and noses with scarves. “I’ve been in tears for years,” said one woman, calmly dabbing at her eyes. This was the fourth installation of the work, Chicago said a few minutes later, and it has been done before in spaces where the vapors can spread in all directions. “One of the reasons in the difficulty with breathing is because it’s so enclosed here,” she said. (People watched the 9 p.m. performance from farther away.)

In prior iterations, the flares had formed abstract patterns. Why “TRUTH” now? “Why do you think?” she said, friendly and snappy all at once. “Not all my work has been quite as clear as this piece.” No expectations of a Presidential Medal of Freedom from the man in the White House? “Very funny,” she answered. She’d been told recently, “Judy, you are as much of a badass as you were when you were young,” and it was a description she found fitting enough to repeat.

Upstairs, in a clear tent in the fifth floor sculpture garden, each Birthday Supper table was decorated with a neon version of the word “one” in some language or another (sure, eins is one in German; but when I attempted to look up bat the next day, Google plunged me into a sea of baseball stats).

I made my way to the seventh floor’s Surprise Bash, where: Brad Barton was doing card tricks; in a tattoo parlor, people lined up for real permanent ink, a deer head or avocado (skin of a certain age would turn it to guacamole in months, I concluded); Barry McGee said it took him and Clare Rojas only two days to cover the walls with graffiti; Helado Negro and the Tinsel Mammals, human yetis covered with glittering strips of foil, wowed camera wielding spectators.

And then, for a few minutes, I ducked into William Kentridge’s “The Refusal of Time,” an installation reopened especially for this event. In the center of the darkened room is a huge machine-like structure with parts moving back and forth, video images playing on wall-size screens, a tick-tock sound augmented by lower brass and words whispered (“a suitcase of teeth and glasses”) presumably by Kentridge.

When I emerged from that respite — being surrounded by art as opposed to being surrounded by art lovers — my longtime companion (all in white) was chatting up two women in short skirts, one of whom sported a bandage over her fresh tattoo, as a hot-chocolate-and-churros lady offered those treats from her cart.

By this time, we were well-fed, talked out, merried to the brink. So we went downstairs, where PR peer Allison Speer, Prada blinged-out, said she’d only been able to buy her showstopper necklace after promising the company Instagram selfies of herself wearing it (at Costco, you don’t have to promise anyone anything). And there, we also ran into Chronicle Arts Content Editor Mariecar Mendoza (she presides over pop music and pop culture) who was just arriving in time to see, hear and write about Solange’s performance.

All Bashed-out, so homeward we went.

“It’s gotten so bad. Yesterday a student texted me that she was going to be late for class because the Uber driver was late.” Man overheard at Glen Park BART Station by David Pierce