Matthew Barney, the creator of the seven-hour “Cremaster Cycle” and the man who has been called “the most important American artist of his generation” by one prominent critic, wore an expression of forbearance on his handsome, mustached face on Friday night, as a crowd of slightly tipsy 20- and 30-somethings packed into a front room at the National Arts Club to watch him accept the club’s Medal of Honor for Lifetime Achievement in Art. Handed the medal by the club’s president, Aldon James, Mr. Barney uttered a brief “Thank you,” and retreated from the microphone. There was an awkward pause, and then the crowd returned to socializing. The DJ turned the music on, and people went to refill their drinks.

Even if muted, Mr. Barney’s presence was a coup for a group of young members who are trying to bring both more Contemporary art and better parties to the club. Although less exclusive than uptown institutions like the Union Club and the Knickerbocker Club, the National Arts Club still tends to attract more arts patrons and people in the so-called creative industries (i.e., advertising and marketing) than actual artists, partly for practical reasons such as the dress code and the substantial annual dues.

And although in its early days the club was a leader in showing the work of American photographers — a 1902 exhibit, organized by Alfred Stieglitz, included photographs by Edward Steichen and Gertrude Käsebier — in recent years its exhibitions have hardly been on the cutting edge of artistic trends.

“The National Arts Club has traditionally been committed to representational art,” the chairwoman of the club’s visual art committee, a philanthropist and painter, Dianne Bernhard, said in an interview by phone from her home in Connecticut. “Our club was started by artists who painted in that vein, like William Merritt Chase.” But the younger generation has a different vision. The chairman of the club’s junior committee, a 24-year-old banker named Michael Martin, said that he would like the National Arts Club to become more like Norwood, a for-profit club that opened recently in a sleekly furnished townhouse on West 14th Street.

“It’s in many ways what I want the National Arts Club to be,” Mr. Martin said. “A lot of cool young people who have a beautiful space and a bar.”

Another member, Stacey Engman, recently started a new committee for Contemporary art. She curated the committee’s first exhibition, a group show of emerging artists called “Crossover: Urban Fantasy in Relation to Landscape, Celebrity, and Performance.” In an effort to connect the club with other groups of youthful art patrons, Ms. Engman invited the Museum of Modern Art’s “Junior Associates” to the exhibition opening, which also featured a musical group, Fluxconcert, that re-creates avant-garde performances from the 1960s.

“There’s a whole spectrum of people who are trying to — I wouldn’t say revive the club, but bring in younger members and introduce members to the Contemporary art world,” another young member, Chrissy Crawford, said. Ms. Crawford, who is an independent curator and art consultant, recently moved to New York from London, where she belonged to a private club in part because it was a good place to meet clients, instead of inviting them to “my 200-square-foot apartment.”

Ms. Crawford, who is American, wanted something similar here. She was drawn to the National Arts Club because it was a nonprofit and “a quirky place,” she said. “It wasn’t the SoHo Club, and it wasn’t flashy. There’s a lot of programming for the arts, and it’s all done by volunteers.” She helped to plan the evening for Mr. Barney and is curating a retrospective of the painter Chuck Connelly, which will open at the club in June to coincide with a preview screening of a new HBO documentary about Mr. Connelly.

Among the guests on Friday were the director Michel Gondry (of “Be Kind Rewind” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”) and the founders of the Naked Ping-Pong Club, which hosts ping-pong parties that frequently attract celebrities. Mr. Barney’s girlfriend, the singer Björk, was absent, but their 5-year-old daughter, Isadora, attended and seemed, more than her father perhaps, to enjoy the party. She spent the early part of the evening sitting on a sofa and drawing; later, when the music picked up, she danced around the room.