This year’s edition of the fête celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Guggenheim’s Young Collectors Council and the group’s fund, which supports emerging and established contemporary creatives. Several artists whose work has been supported through the YCC were spotted in the crowd, including Anthony Akinbola, Jes Fan, Lucia Hierro, Tommy Kha, Baseera Khan, Elle Pérez and Rachel Rossin. Also present were painter Kylie Manning, famed private chef Keegan McManus, bitforms founder Steve Sacks, actress Lux Pascal, Eden Arts Foundation founder Eden Xu-Martinez and Isabel Timerman (a.k.a. Isabel Unhinged).
Part of what makes the YCC Party so unmissable is that the Guggenheim invites one artist each year to collaborate on the aesthetics of the evening, resulting in a one-night takeover of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed space. Consequently, the YCC party isn’t just an evening out but also an especially exclusive one-night-only solo show. Diane Severin Nguyen had the honor of dressing the rotunda this year and conceived a multisensory journey that transported guests into an otherworldly dimension through site-specific activations.
Among them was an immersive soundscape and a “breathing room” staged in Wright’s open space, which became into a capsule for deep immersion in the depths of the ocean or the cosmic reaches or one’s own innermost self. It was an exercise in attunement between internal frequencies and environmental ones and deeply resonant with Wright’s conception of the Guggenheim’s architecture as a form of harmony between human perception and the natural world. Nguyen’s intervention heightened this meditative and contemplative dimension—no easy feat in the middle of a dance party.
Of course, contemporary experience is shaped by contradiction, and Nguyen underscored this friction with a video mashup capturing the cacophony of daily urban life, set against the suspended calm of AURA JOURNEY. The intervention evoked and amplified the Guggenheim’s unseen forces, where form, light and movement already converge toward a sense of inner and outer coherence. Attendees could also wander through “Carol Bove,” the first museum survey of the artist’s work; her sculptures offered their own meditation on the embodiment and disembodiment of spatial sensation.
During the speeches, Guggenheim director and CEO Mariët Westermann, LG head of brand Seol Park and Don Kwack, president and CEO of LG North America, toasted the recipient of this year’s LG Guggenheim Award recipient, artist Trevor Paglen—just a few days after the announcement that he will curate the first edition of Zero 10 in Basel. Here’s what else you missed:
Isabel Timerman
Chloe Wise and Tiffany Zabludowicz
Eden Xu-Martinez
Elle Pérez and Trevor Paglen
Keegan McManus
Lux Pascal and Ana Amelia Batlle Cabral
Deidrea Miller and Trevyn McGowan
Hannah Bernstein and Elizabeth Chung
Ayan Broomfield
Kylie Manning
Dren and Angel
Thea Traff and Foster Baker
Justin Frett and Kahh Spence
Steve Martinez, Eden Xu-Martinez, Ally Yoon and Connor Gewirtz
Adam Mrlik and Tinx
Dakota Sica and Joanna Gong
Victoria Morphy and Hanan Hassan
Adam Mrlik, Ashley Bader, Despot, Tinx and Lacey Dorn
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