A Whole Lot of Nothing Goin' On

Last night's Guggenheim International Gala, the museum's fifth—but the first to take place within the halls of the famed Frank Lloyd Wright building—was a celebration both of the institution's fiftieth birthday and also of the opening of the Vasily Kandinsky exhibit. Containing nearly 100 paintings and more than 60 works on paper, the assemblage is filled with the sort of colorful large-scale canvases that Kandinsky is so known for and which are tailor-made for the pristine white walls and spiral galleries of the Guggenheim.

Guests at the evening's gala were also treated to Levels of Nothingness, a special light extravaganza by Mexican artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. Inspired by the Kandinsky work Yellow Sound, Hemmer installed a ring of robotic lights around the circumference of the Guggenheim's theater, rigging the illuminating creatures to be responsive to the human voice. Accepting both spoken commands and moving in place in reaction to the timbre and emotion of the speaker, these bots performed a ballet of light in response to the locution of Italian model and actress Isabella Rossellini. "These are the same sort of lights that would be used at a Rolling Stones concert," explained Lozano-Hemmer, theorizing that the late Kandinsky would have loved the lights himself. The spectacular installation wowed the guests in attendance, who were also given an opportunity to step up to the stage to see how the automatons responded to their voices.

Following the performance, guests gathered in the main hall, where they dined beneath a canopy of Swarovski crystals. All in all, it was a shimmering evening.

The Kandinsky show will run through mid-January 2010.