A still from Marco Brambilla's new Ferrari-commissioned video installation, RPM.

At around 9:30 last night, Andre Balazs arrived at the top of the Standard, the intimidatingly tall and starkly designed hotel he owns in the Meatpacking District. Which is to say, he arrived at the Top of the Standard, the sleek bar with wraparound windows on the hotel's 18th floor, that is better known to most as The Club Formerly Known as the Boom Boom Room. Or just the Boom Boom Room. Or, well, let's just say that this morning The Observer received an e-mail asking if we were at "Boom," and we understood immediately what was meant. As Mr. Balazs passed the glossily made-up girls at the front desk, he was asked, "Will you be needing a table, sir?" but he ignored the question, glided past the girls and through the massive gilded door of Boom, took a lap through Downtown for Democracy's jam-packed benefit hosted by über-hip L.A. gallery Ohwow, glad-handed with hipsters, caught a speech by Terry Richardson's girlfriend Audrey Gelman (who, by the way, is legitimately involved in politics), then took the elevator 15 floors south and arrived, without having been missed, without seeming to have really disappeared at all, at his hotel's Highline Room event space, where he'd laid out two long tables for a dinner in honor of his friend and colleague, artist Marco Brambilla, and lined them with bold-faced names. This is why Andre Balazs is the reigning maestro of the hospitality industry, and you are not.

But the matter at hand is Marco Brambilla and his jaw-dropping dinner party and his jaw-dropping new 3-D kaleidoscopic mash-up single-channel video installations which, even without the 3-D glasses you are meant to wear when you view them, convince you that someone slipped something dangerously hallucinogenic into your gin and tonic. (In, you know, a good way.) Or, in the case of this dinner party, your shot of Patron, bottles of which stood like sentinels on the tables. But more on that in a bit.

It is probably axiomatic that you are fancy if a car company throws a party for you. It is probably a corollary of this that you are super fancy if Ferrari throws you a party, and such was the case with Mr. Brambilla. But let's not bury the lead by obscuring it with a car (even if it's a really cool one): White Cube honcho Jay Jopling was there; Chinese/American megacollector Richard Chang was there; New Line Cinema CEO Bob Shaye was there; David Salle and Marina Abramovic were there; Theophilus London was there; an assortment of Bronfmans were there. At a certain point, everyone had to pause in their consumption of filet mignon, put on the 3-D glasses, and look decidedly goofy while watching Mr. Brambilla's spacey new video RPM, which features a blinding array of spliced-together photographs including gritted teeth, flames and writhing bodies, and gives the general impression of cruising at a high speed on a race track. And this is as it should be, because it was commissioned by Ferrari, and is, in fact, a psychological portrait of a Formula One racer. Mr. Brambilla photographed the myriad images that compose it at the Italian Formula One Grand Prix in Monza. Yes, if you've ever wanted a glimpse into a Formula One racer's psychic life, this is your chance. (This article, being pretty much a basic party report, is neither art criticism nor a psychological inquiry, but the short answer to what a Formula Racer's inner life looks like would, according to Mr. Brambilla's artwork, be: fast. Fast and…intense. So, no real surprises there.) The video is on a two-minute loop. The dinner guests didn't seem to be aware of that, or maybe everyone was slightly tipsy, or tired, or hypnotized by what they were watching--the third scenario being the likeliest one--because after around five minutes Mr. Brambilla took off his glasses, pivoted in his chair to face his audience, and said, "It repeats!" (Personally, The Observer thought it would have benefitted from a soundtrack by Kraftwerk--after all, the press materials on it open with the promise that "the line between man and machine is blurred"--but you know, you can't have everything.)

There were, ineluctably, speeches. First up, Mr. Balazs, who was likely inspired by his elevator ride. Since he opened the Standard a few years ago, its elevators have featured a Brambilla video, Heaven and Hell, running on two screens, so that you feel like you are encompassed by it, which, depending on your mood and who you're with, is either really cool or kind of scary. Mr. Balazs began by observing that without Mr. Brambilla, his hotel would have been "lame," or something to that effect. It's about as easy to imagine Mr. Balazs doing something that would merit the adjective "lame" as it is to picture Mitt Romney being the president of the United States, but we'll take his word for it. He went on about how thrilling it is to work with someone who has an "unusual approach" and is willing to tackle things that are "out of the ordinary." What you see in the elevator, he explained, is an epic rise from hell to heaven and back down again. You descend as you ascend. "Marco is a visionary," he said and added that there are very few people who are so "childlike"--here, someone called out reassuringly, "It's a compliment, Marco!"--"in their ability to perceive and appreciate the most wonderful things in life." This conveniently conformed to the dynamic at work last night: the glitzy hipsters were upstairs partying with Ohwow's A-Ron "the downtown don" Bondaroff; the glitzy swells were downstairs swilling Patron with Jopling, Shaye, Bronfman, & Co.)

Next up was Vanity Fair scribe Bob Colacello. He began by saying that he first encountered Mr. Brambilla's video work in the elevator of Mr. Balazs's Raleigh Hotel in Miami. The video in question features, he reminded everyone, "1,789 couples having sexual intercourse, none of whom ever achieve orgasm." Not long afterwards, Mr. Brambilla contacted him, about a video he wanted to make about the life and times of Andy Warhol--Mr. Colacello was close to the Factory scene--and was looking for audio tapes. "We have our apocalyptic lunches occasionally, where we convince each other that the end of the world is just around the corner, and it's all because of lack of imagination among young people because of technology," Mr. Colacello revealed. "Of course, no one uses technology more creatively than Marco." He first saw the Standard's Heaven and Hell video in a Catholic church. "All these priests came marching in, and altar boys, chanting Latin as Marco's Hollywood images were floating over our heads," he said. "And I was with a South American tycoon and his wife"--let's just pause for a moment to observe that, of course Bob Colacello was with a South American tycoon and his wife--"and they were like, 'Oh, this is everything we love! Catholicism and contemporary art!' And I texted Marco and said you have to do this in every Catholic church in the world. You could save the faith."  He followed that up by saying that Mr. Brambilla "understands the absurdity at the heart of late 20th-century Western civilization, or late-stage Western civilization, and is able to walk this fine line between the profound and the superficial." Okay, Bob!

Then, finally, it was Mr. Brambilla's turn. "Thank you everyone for coming," he said, and then talked about working with Ferrari on the commission, and then urged everyone to watch his video. Which everyone then did. Or maybe it was the other way around. Maybe the video came before the speeches. We might have written this slightly out of order, but it seemed only appropriate. Once Artlog.com founder Manish Vora, who was seated to The Observer's right, cracked open the nearest bottle of Patron, that is how the night started looking: slightly out of order.

Larry Gagosian, a man who eats lunch. Courtesy Business Insider.

One of the first things you learn in any introductory journalism class—nestled somewhere between how to write a nut graf and why you shouldn’t use a pen when you’re reporting outside in the winter (the ink freezes)—is never to include in an article details about the meal you ate during an interview.  This is why we’re so tickled by the Financial Times’ ongoing “Lunch with the FT” series. Here, the writer gets what sounds like a very expensive lunch with a powerful person--including a number of important art dealers--and meticulously catalogues the food consumed, often using the interviewee’s order choices as an extended metaphor for his or her personality and biography. Another thing, one that may or may not be particularly true of The Observer (we’ll never tell), the FT always picks up the tab.

They might not pass journalism 101, but boy howdy are these things a hoot. Let’s see what we’ve learned about our favorite art dealers from the kind of salad they eat.

Jay Jopling: The most recent "Lunch with the FT" was also the White Cube founder’s first interview in 10 years. The writer—writing in the first person, naturally—took him to Zucca, “whose wide glass front, slick white plastic furnishings and open-plan kitchen shares White Cube’s concept of accessible chic.” “I [the writer] choose mozzarella and courgettes. For mains, [Jopling] orders pasta with broccoli, I opt for grilled wild sea bass. Despite a reputation for being able to drink his artists under the table at his lavish parties, Jopling declines wine.” Classy! The following quote—well, we’ll just reproduce it in its entirety (and retain the British spelling of everything):

The casarecce – long pasta spirals with purple sprouting broccoli, anchovies and pecorino – and my grilled sea bass, accompanied by cauliflower, are served: simple, succulent, tasty. Does globalisation detract from art’s immediacy? I wonder.

Talk about a transition! Simple, succulent, tasty—like, say, a Damien Hirst spot painting, the kind that took the globe—get it? “globalisation?”—by storm at all 11 Gagosian galleries earlier this year? Is this an allusion to a secret rivalry between Mr Hirst’s London dealer, Mr. Jopling, and his man in New York, Larry Gagosian? Why not? Also: at the end, Mr. Jopling tries to pick up the tab.

Larry Gagosian: Speaking of good ol’ Gogo, the dealer met the FT down the road from his Davies Street gallery at C London. They order mineral water—the writer gets still and Mr. Gagosian gets sparkling—sparkling like the silver of his hair? Or the collective pristine shine of his 11 galleries across the world? Uh, sure!  “He asks for grilled swordfish–surely appropriate for a man known as the sharpest operator in the business.” Man, this article is making our arms sore; such is the weight of these words! “He approaches the dish methodically, with minimal interest, and continues: ‘I wasn’t particularly ambitious at college, I had no career path whatsoever. I started from scratch so it always felt like progress.’” Surely it was his lack of ambition in college that led directly to his ambivalence about the food at this very meal. Mr. Gagosian doesn’t “do coffee” and seems to have no problem having someone pay for his lunch.

Helly Nahmad: The head of his famous collecting family’s London gallery sat down with the FT at Brasserie Lipp in Paris, not long after mounting a major exhibition of rare paintings from the Nahmad collection by Picasso, Matisse, Miró and others. Booze plays a pretty important role in this installment: “He asks what I will drink. Whatever you do, I say. ‘But you might not like that!’ he exclaims, requesting vodka and orange juice. I order a coupe de champagne, to celebrate his exhibition.” Then Mr. Nahmad goes on an existential rant in the very restaurant where Hemingway used to get loaded:

“The overriding message of great artists is that they appreciate the hidden–that is, what’s real,” Nahmad opens. “They counter material reality. These glasses,”–he takes a couple from the table and slams them down again loudly–“these are invented, just an illusion. Brasserie Lipp,” a wave of the hand spans busy tables and gliding waiters – “all this is meaningless. The reason I love what I do is that we are close to people and things made by people saying, ‘I exist and this is how I feel.’”

He proceeds to cancel the vodka and orders champagne along with the two most expensive things on the menu: Foie gras (there’s some kind of liver damage joke to make here) and sole meunière. “The sole, perfectly filleted, buttery, succulent, is served, with new potatoes. Nahmad ignores the vegetables and approaches the fish methodically, preoccupied again with his exhibition.” A true existentialist’s careful forking of a dead fish is certainly parallel with the curating of a thoughtful landmark art exhibition. You are, so we've heard, what you eat.

Andre Balazs and Jay Jopling. (Courtesy PMC)

For the latest edition of the Financial Times' much-loved "Lunch with the FT" column--even politically engaged curator Okwui Enwezor recently admitted he's a fan--Jackie Wullschlager sat down with White Cube owner Jay Jopling at the restaurant Zucca in London. It was Mr. Jopling's first lengthy interview in a decade: he's promoting the opening of the fourth White Cube gallery, in Hong Kong.

Though there were no bombshells, Mr. Jopling offered a nice overview of his life as the son of a member of the Thatcher government turned art dealer. One of his early jobs was selling fire extinguishers--"he would set his sleeve alight to demonstrate their effectiveness." He also convinced Christie's to give him a rent-free space to begin his gallery, in 1993.

Here's his advice for gallerists:

Our job is to create the boundaries in which the artist can best make his work – from facilitating to archiving. Christian Marclay came to me with the idea for ‘The Clock’, and we had nine people looking at films, cutting out bits, for two years. I knew it would be extraordinary, everyone would want it. As a dealer, the greatest thing you can have is an appreciation of art, lack of preconceptions – and extraordinary stamina. You’re nurturing artists’ careers, strategising at a business level, you have to be a showman, and you’ve got to travel exhaustively.

Since this is Armory Week in New York, here's a GalleryBeat clip of Mr. Jopling at the 1995 Gramercy International Art Fair (the predecessor of the Armory Show) with Tracey Emin.

Mr. Jopling. (Patrick McMullan Co.)

British duo Gilbert & George are the lucky artists who have been tapped by Jay Jopling, the owner of White Cube, to inaugurate the gallery's new space in Hong Kong. The gallery announced today that it will open the 6,000-square-foot space, at 50 Connaught Road, on March 2 with a show of the partners' "London Pictures," their largest series to date.

For those keeping score at home, Mr. Jopling will have four spaces once the Hong Kong venue opens. The other three are in London, including a 58,000-square-foot behemoth that he opened on Bermondsey Street during last year. That's still seven less than New York–based dealer Larry Gagosian, who also operates in Hong Kong, but he's getting there!

Mr. Jopling, whose roster includes Tracey Emin, Julie Mehretu, Damien Hirst and Anselm Kiefer, picked a rather superb time to make the announcement, since much of the international art world's attention is on Asia at the moment: the Art Singapore fair is up in the eponymous city-state through Jan. 15.