Free Day at the Guggenheim and upcoming exhibits:GABRIELE MÜNTER AND VASILY KANDINSKY, 1902–14: A LIFE IN PHOTOGRAPHSSeptember 18, 2009–January 13, 2010 Gabriele Münter and Vasily Kandinsky, 1902–14: A Life in Photographs presents German artist Gabriele Münter’s photographs (along with a selection taken by her companion, Russian-born artist Vasily Kandinsky), recording the years they lived, traveled, and worked together between 1902 and 1914. Private and documentary images from their life in Germany and their travels in Europe and northern Africa, as well as portraits taken with friends and colleagues offer a fascinating glimpse into the artists’ private and public personas. Gabriele Münter and Vasily Kandinsky, 1902–14: A Life in Photographs is organized by the Sackler Center for Arts Education at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.PAIRED, GOLD: FELIX GONZALEZ-TORRES AND RONI HORNOctober 2, 2009–January 6, 2010 Bringing together two important works from the permanent collection for the first time, this exhibition illuminates the profound artistic dialogue between Roni Horn and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Suspended from the ceiling, the new acquisition “Untitled” (Golden) (1995) by Gonzalez-Torres will act as a site of passage, a shimmering curtain of golden beads opening onto Horn’s delicate gold floor piece, Gold Field (1980–82). The paired works reflect a critical engagement with the legacy of Minimalism and the emotive possibilities of form. This exhibition is organized by Nancy Spector, Chief Curator.INTERVALS: KITTY KRAUSOctober 9, 2009–January 6, 2010 German artist Kitty Kraus has been invited to exhibit her work for the second installment of Intervals, a new contemporary art series designed to showcase experimental projects by emerging artists and reflect the spirit of today’s most innovative practices. This exhibition is organized by Nancy Spector, Chief Curator, and Katherine Brinson, Assistant Curator.THE DEUTSCHE BANK SERIES AT THE GUGGENHEIMANISH KAPOOR: MEMORY October 21, 2009–March 28, 2010 With the inauguration of the Deutsche Guggenheim in 1997, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Deutsche Bank launched a unique and ambitious program of contemporary art commissions that has enabled the Deutsche Guggenheim to act as a catalyst for artistic production. Anish Kapoor: Memory is the 14th project to be completed since the program’s inception and is the foundation’s first collaboration with the artist. The commission is traveling to New York after its Berlin debut, demonstrating Kapoor’s ability to create a site-specific work that engages with two very different exhibition spaces. Kapoor was born in 1954 in Bombay, India. He has lived in London since the early 1970s and quickly rose to prominence in the 1980s. Best known for his explorations of the concept of the void and his use of color and scale, he has since redefined contemporary sculpture. Memory is a remarkable new work in industrial Cor-Ten steel that transforms the galleries through shifts in physical, mental, and architectural scale. This exhibition is organized by Sandhini Poddar, Assistant Curator of Asian Art.TINO SEHGALJanuary 29–March 10, 2010 London-born, Berlin-based artist Tino Sehgal constructs staged situations that often defy the traditional contexts of museum and gallery environments, focusing on the fleeting gestures and social subtleties that define lived experience rather than the material aspects of conventional art making. His singular practice has been informed by extensive studies in dance and economics, yielding entirely ephemeral works that consist only of the interactions among their participants and are not visually documented. Organized as part of the Guggenheim’s 50th-anniversary celebrations, Sehgal will present two major projects in the Frank Lloyd Wright–designed rotunda, each representing a pivotal part of his practice. The first, entitled Kiss, takes the form of a choreographed interaction between two participants, transforming the ground floor of the rotunda into an arena for spectatorship. In the second work, This Progress, a succession of interlocutors directly engages visitors in an increasingly sophisticated verbal interaction throughout the spiraling rotunda. Together these works expand the concept of what constitutes a contemporary art object, offering the viewer a direct engagement with the realization of the work presented. This exhibition is organized by Nancy Spector, Chief Curator, assisted by Nat Trotman, Associate Curator, and Katherine Brinson, Assistant Curator.CONTEMPLATING THE VOID: INTERVENTIONS IN THE GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM ROTUNDA, AN ANNIVERSARY BENEFIT EVENTFebruary 12–May 13, 2010 This exhibition celebrates the catalytic power of the Frank Lloyd Wright–designed museum’s spiraling rotunda on the occasion of the building’s 50th Anniversary. Since its opening in 1959, the building has served as an inspiration for invention, challenging artists and architects to react to its eccentric, organic design. The central void of the rotunda has elicited many unique responses over the years, which have been manifested in both site-specific solo shows and memorable exhibition designs. With that history in mind, the Guggenheim invited approximately 200 artists, architects, and designers to imagine their dream interventions in the space. The exhibition will feature their renderings of these visionary projects in a salon-style installation that will emphasize the rich and diverse range of inspired proposals. This exhibition is organized by Nancy Spector, Chief Curator, and David van der Leer, Assistant Curator for Architecture and Design.HAUNTED: CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY/VIDEO/PERFORMANCEMarch 26–September 5, 2010 Much of contemporary photography and video seems haunted by the past, by ghostly apparitions that are reanimated in reproductive media, as well as in live performance and the virtual world. By using dated, passé, or quasi-extinct stylistic devices, subject matter, and technologies, this art embodies a melancholic longing for an otherwise unrecuperable past. Haunted: Contemporary Photography/Video/Performance examines the myriad ways photographic imagery is incorporated into recent practice and in the process underscores the unique power of reproductive media while documenting a widespread contemporary obsession, both collective and individual, with accessing the past. The works included in the exhibition range from individual photographs and photographic series, to sculptures and paintings that incorporate photographic elements, and to videos, both on monitors and projected, as well as film, performance, and site-specific installations. Drawn primarily from the Guggenheim Museum collection, Haunted will feature recent acquisitions, many of which will be exhibited by the museum for the first time. Included in the show will be work by such artists as Marina Abramovi?, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Sophie Calle, Gregory Crewdson, Tacita Dean, Stan Douglas, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Roni Horn, Zoe Leonard, Robert Rauschenberg, Cindy Sherman, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Jeff Wall, and Andy Warhol. A significant part of the exhibition will be dedicated to work created since 2001 by younger artists. This exhibition is curated by Jennifer Blessing, Curator of Photography, and Nat Trotman, Associate Curator.Program HighlightsDESIGN IT: SHELTER COMPETITIONEnter through August 23, 2009 Voting begins on September 7, 2009 From June 8 to August 23, the Guggenheim and Google invite the public to participate in the Design It: Shelter Competition at guggenheim.org/shelter. Participants around the globe may design a shelter—a place to live and work—anywhere in the world through Google SketchUp, and submissions will be viewed and judged by the public and a jury. Public voting begins on September 7, and winners will be announced on October 21.LEVELS OF NOTHINGNESSThursday and Saturday–Monday, September 17 and 19–21, 7:30 pm Inspired by Vasily Kandinsky’s Yellow Sound (Der gelbe Klang, 1912), Mexican-born Rafael Lozano-Hemmer creates an installation, in which colors are automatically derived from the human voice, generating an interactive light performance. Isabella Rossellini will read seminal philosophical texts on skepticism, color, and perception, while her voice is analyzed by computers that control a full rig of rock-and-roll concert lighting. Audience members will have the opportunity to test the color-generating microphone.FREE DAY!October 21, 2009 On October 21, 2009, exactly 50 years after the opening of the museum’s historic Fifth Avenue home, the public is invited to celebrate the Guggenheim’s golden anniversary with free admission, tours offered in several languages, and a roster of special education programs, including many family-friendly activities.EMPIRE STATE BUILDING TRIBUTEOctober 21, 2009 On October 21, 2009, the Empire State Building will be lit Guggenheim red in honor of the museum’s 50th birthday. Throughout October, the Empire State Building’s display windows in the lobby will feature the museum.Current ExhibitionsFRANK LLOYD WRIGHT: FROM WITHIN OUTWARDMay 15–August 23, 2009 Fifty years after the completion of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most iconic work, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation have partnered to develop Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward, an original exhibition that examines Wright’s concepts of space and its impact on the organization of modern life, highlighting the Guggenheim’s famed spiral as a culmination of the continuous spatial experiences that defined Wright’s 72-year career. The exhibition explores how Wright’s forms, designed from within outward, showcase the positive effects that architecture can exert on the human psyche. Through the presentation of more than 80 of Wright’s projects, from privately commissioned homes to office, civic, and government buildings to religious and performance spaces as well as unrealized urban megastructures, the exhibition elucidates his visionary projection of the modern lifestyle—initiating open, communal spaces that stimulate social exchange. It also highlights his ability to organically unite people, buildings, and nature in physical and spiritual harmony. Frank Lloyd Wright is presented through a range of media, including more than 200 original drawings, newly commissioned and historic models, one-to-one scale replicas, newly created video and digital renderings, photography, and ephemera such as correspondence and blueprints. The curatorial team includes Thomas Krens, Senior Advisor of International Affairs of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and David van der Leer, Assistant Curator of Architecture and Design of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, in collaboration with Philip Allsopp, President and CEO of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation; Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, Director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives; Oskar Muñoz, Assistant Director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives; and Margo Stipe, Curator and Registrar of Collections of the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives.Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum1071 Fifth Avenue (at 89th Street) New York, NY 10128-0173http://guggenheim.org