This MOCA staffer is a real party girl

Vanessa Gonzalez and Allen Gorospe were seated at a small table outside the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, flipping through swatches of green and brown fabric. They were debating linen choices for the director's reception for "WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution," opening this weekend at the Geffen along with "Andrea Zittel: Critical Space," and the top contenders were a muted stripe, a textured weave in avocado and tan, and a chocolaty ultrasuede with a raised geometric pattern. "It's nice," Gorospe said diplomatically, caressing the suede. "I just think I've seen it in so many weddings."

Gonzalez slammed the book shut. "That's all you needed to say. We're going with the avocado."

As MOCA's development events manager, coordinating an average of 35 events a year, Gonzalez is more rock 'n' roll chick than art geek, with her platinum hair, platform shoes, high-gloss lips and vanity plates that say "GR*UPIE." Over the past five years, she's produced events that have made MOCA one of the hottest social tickets in town, like this past fall's "Skin + Bones" fete, which attracted such A-listers as Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore. With the growing L.A. art scene, the museum's membership has also shot up, which, according to MOCA's director, Jeremy Strick, can be linked in part to "the unique atmosphere Vanessa helps to create."

Gonzalez's debut was the 2002 Warhol retrospective, which she turned into a Factory-inspired happening. She brought in a group of DJs who spun underground 45s from the '60s, which impressed the show's curator, Ann Goldstein. "She was so amazed that they were spinning 45s," Gonzalez recalled over sushi at R23. "It was so authentic for her. I'll never forget that. I think that really just put it all in perspective for me: You can have the event be an extension of the work and the exhibition."

That has remained her guiding principle. "I took every single event and I said, OK, I'm gonna educate myself about this artist; I want to know what this artist is about, when they grew up, what was important to them."

For the 2005 opening for Jean-Michel Basquiat, a fixture on the early '80s New York club scene, there was only one entertainer on Gonzalez's wish list: Grandmaster Flash. Starting a year in advance she worked to track him down, finally getting through to his manager, who had known Basquiat. "She was like, I remember that kid. He used to walk into the nightclub I managed and ask me for drink tickets.... That kid loved Flash." At his manager's urging, Flash agreed to do the gig -- for a fraction of his regular fee. "When it's personal to them," Gonzalez continued, "that's when the fees get waived, that's when it becomes 'we'll work with your budget.' "