The
Guggenheim Museum hosted their annual Guggenheim International Gala on
Wednesday, September 16, 2009 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Cocktails
and viewing of the upcoming exhibition KANDINSKY began at 7:00PM. Attire
was Black Tie and Kandinsky colors.
Over $2.3 million was raised to support
the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
There were 250 guests including
Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation director Richard Armstrong, Maria Baibakova,
Isabella Rossellini, William Mack, Jennifer Stockman, Frank Stella, Marilyn
Minter, Rafael Lozano Hemmer, Peter Coffin, Amy and John Phelan, Danielle
and David Ganek, Isabella and Theodor Dalenson, Allison and Howard Lutnick,
Larry Gagosian, Ann and Steven Ames, Christina and Robert Baker, Erin
Baker, Debra Black, Henry M. Buhl , Denise and John Calicchio, Rose and
Will Cotton, Marie and Carl Gustaf Ehrnrooth, Armand Erpf, Sara Fitzmaurice
and Marc Spiegler, Judie and Howard Ganek, William Hillman, Jill and
Peter Kraus, Nancy and Jeffrey Lane, Peter Lawson-Johnston II , Linda
Macklowe, Edward Meyer, Cheryl and Michael Minikes, Edward Nahem, Elizabeth
Richebourg Rea, Michael B. Robertson, Kara and Steve Ross, Eugene Sadovoy,
Stéphane Samuel and Robert M. Rubin, Thaddaeus Ropac, Eugene Sadovoy,
Denise and Andrew Saul, Lenore and Adam Sender, Per and Helena Skarstedt,
Mary Cronson, Norman Peck, Lisa Dennison, Wendy McNeil, and Tom Messer,
Anna Pasternak, Mike Starn, Tom Friedman, Sheldon Solow, Richard Chang,
Tom and Janine Hill, and Thomas Messer.
Event chairmen included Richard
Armstrong, Art Garfunkel, Sarah Jessica Parker, Maria Baibakova, Isabella
and Theodor Dalenson, Danielle Ganek, Amy Phelan and Jacqueline Sackler.
Honorary chairs were Phyllis and William Mack and Jennifer and David
Stockman. Corporate sponsor was Deutsche Bank.
Before and after dinner,
guests were invited to the museum’s Peter B. Lewis Theater for
the debut of Levels of Nothingness. Inspired by Kandinsky’s The
Yellow Sound (1912), Mexican born Rafael Lozano-Hemmer creates an installation
where colors derive automatically from the human voice to generate an
interactive light performance. Isabella Rossellini read seminal philosophical
texts on skepticism, color, and perception, while her voice was analyzed
by computers that control a full rig of rock-and-roll concert lighting.
The audience had the opportunity to test the color-generating microphone
as well.
In honor of the 50th anniversary, a 2007 Ellsworth Kelly painting
was also donated by the artist to be auctioned at the Gala. Entitled
Blue Relief, the oil-on-canvas work consists of two joined panels. The
foreground panel of Blue Relief is a sapphire quadrilateral reminiscent
of a shadow cast from an unseen building. This vividly colored form is
set askew on top of an underlying matte-white panel. This work’s
chromatic splendor and the visual imbalance created by the layered canvases
exemplify Kelly’s experimentation with composition and his ongoing
engagement with the sculptural possibilities of painting and will complement
the Kandinsky canvases on view in the rotunda.
As a gift from the Guggenheim
to its friends and supporters, a limited-edition art object, a miniature
organ emitting both music and light by Peter Coffin entitled Clavier à lumières,
was given to all guests. Complementing Kandinsky’s explorations
of synaesthesia, the New York-based Coffin’s work reimagines the
notion of a unified sensory experience, operating as an instrument of
integrated color, light, and sound.
