NEW YORK—Whether presenting a cocaine buffet as an artwork or turning an art fair booth into a flea market, artist Rob Pruitt has always seemed to want us to laugh with him. To his credit, his latest performance, the First Annual Art Awards, a Golden Globes-style awards ceremony doubling as a benefit for the Guggenheim (in whose rotunda it took place last week), the alternative space White Columns, and the Studio in a School program, maintained the ludic spirit that characterizes the rest of his production.

The event started out with a tongue-in-cheek red-carpet extravaganza, complete with blinding flashbulbs and paparazzi and hosted by the Art Production Fund’s Yvonne Force Villareal, Doreen Remen, and Casey Fremont, who greeted both art-world celebrities — dealer and tastemaker Jeffrey Deitch with, on his arm, artist Kembra Pfahler decked out in full Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black regalia (nude and painted powder blue, hair a voluminous rats nest) — and actual celebrities like Kylie Minogue, Julianne Moore, and James Franco, all of whom served as presenters.

Pruitt, dapper in a slick black suit and Converse All-Stars, served as master of ceremonies, with a good amount of help from his co-hosts, the Delusional Downtown Divas, whose sitcom-like Web TV show for Index magazine sends up the art world by chronicling the desperate efforts of three hapless young women (the Divas, played by Joana Avillez, Lena Dunham, and Isabel Halley) to make a name for themselves in it. The Art Awards opened with a video in which the Divas read an email from Pruitt, asking them to take part in the ceremony. (In the first of the night’s many in-jokes, one of them is wearing a T-shirt that reads “The Days of This Society Are Numbered,” a reference to a painting by Rirkrit Tiravanija recently shown at the Frieze Art Fair by Tiravanija’s dealer, Gavin Brown, who also represents Pruitt.) The Divas think Pruitt is offering them an award; when they find out he is instead asking them to co-host, they’re initially dismayed, but quickly perk up. “It’s important for us to get exposure,” one of them observes. Does Pruitt’s offer indicate that he trusts them? No, they decide: “It shows desperation...that’s really sweet.”

Taking the stage with the Divas to greet his guests (who’d paid $1,000 a seat, or $10,000 a table for the privilege), Pruitt poked fun at his role as impresario (“Why should I wield this kind of power?”) and pointed out that while some took his Art Awards “seriously, others [see it] as cheeky performance. Couldn’t we use cheeky performance now?” (Maybe so; after all, Pruitt launched these awards, according to the night’s printed program, in part to rouse the art world from a gloomy mood brought on by the recession.) The awards were meant to be something “that toasts the art world,” he went on, at which point one of the Divas interjected, “and roasts it a little bit, too.”

And roast it did. The first award, for writer of the year, went to New York magazine’s Jerry Saltz, who began his acceptance speech by cheekily thanking Pruitt for “the lamp” — the trophies take the form of a champagne bottle jutting from a bucket of ice, and indeed double as kitschy lamps. “First of all, I’d like to thank the academy,” Saltz continued. “Just kidding.” He gave props to one of the other contenders, Walter Robinson, founding editor of Artnet magazine — “he should be given a MacArthur” — and ended by quipping, “I love the art world. I love all of you. I hate you and I love you too. We sing the art world electric.”

The rest of the awards alternated between moments of gravity — a memorial video honored the recently deceased, including art historian Robert Rosenblum (who actually died in 2006) and artist Robert Rauschenberg — and antic humor — as dealer Tony Shafrazi rose to accept his award for best group show of the year (for “Who’s Afraid of Jasper Johns?” which was favored to win, curated as it was by Gavin Brown and Urs Fischer) an audience member called out “Kill lies all!” the phrase Shafrazi infamously spray painted on Picasso’s Guernica in 1974. Shafrazi, for his part, seemed genuinely appreciative of the honor. “I think the art world is as glamorous and exciting as filmmaking and theater,” he observed. “It’s high time this should be happening. Good job, Rob.” And then, as though in a jibe at his heckler, “I think I’ve been great for quite a few years, once in a while.”