• Kandinsky
  • View Exhibition Site
  • Audio Tour
  • Programs

Browse By

Lectures

22nd Annual Hilla Rebay Lecture: Kandinsky’s Apocalyptic Vision
Wednesday, October 14, 6:30 pm
Free on the day of lecture

Reinhold Heller, professor emeritus of Art History and of Germanic Studies at the University of Chicago and an internationally recognized authority on Central European and Scandinavian art of the 1890s and the 20th century, examines the intriguing fusion of chiliastic destruction and an emergent utopian future that characterized Kandinsky’s thought and art. In 1913 Vasily Kandinsky made plans for a portfolio of prints by major European artists to be devoted to books of the Christian Bible. For himself, he reserved the Book of Revelations or The Apocalypse. His fascination with the apocalypse and the end of the world fundamentally shaped both the themes of his art and the thought of his writings, especially around 1910, when he was pioneering abstract art. The appearance of Haley’s Comet and a widespread cultural malaise throughout Europe on the eve of World War I were among the factors that contributed to Kandinsky’s apocalyptic concerns, but he also envisioned a transformed postcataclysmic future that would embrace and expand his work.

This annual program is supported by the Hilla von Rebay Foundation.

The Elaine Terner Cooper Education Fund Conversations with Contemporary Artists

Programs begin at 6:30 pm; receptions follow
$5; free to members, students, and staff of other museums with ID and RSVP

Thursday, October 22
Concurrent with his presentation of Memory, a 24-ton Cor-Ten steel installation, and best known for his explorations of “the void,” Kapoor redefines contemporary sculpture as architectural, perceptual, and human interface

Wednesday, November 4
Gonzales culls images from the mass media, painting ambiguous and sometimes sinister scenes from a web of meticulous, nearly abstract brushstrokes.

Tuesday, November 17
Caivano’s meticulously detailed ink drawings depict ambitious narratives that are often based on lovers’ courtship, separation, retribution, and eventual evolution.

Gallery Tours

Educator’s Eye
Daily at 11 am and 1 pm
Interactive tours of current exhibitions, the permanent collection, and the Frank Lloyd Wright building.

Curator’s Eye
Friday, September 25, 2 pm with Karole Vail
Friday, October 9, 2 pm with Tracey Bashkoff

Conservator’s Eye
Friday, November 6, 2 pm with Gillian McMillan

Mind’s Eye
Kandinsky
Monday, October 5, 6 pm
Join Guggenheim Museum educators Ellen Edelman, Georgia Krantz, and Guthrie Nutter for a tour, discussion, and private reception. Separate programs presented through verbal imaging, touch, and American Sign Language. To RSVP, call 212 360 4355 or e-mail access@guggenheim.org.

Eye to Eye: Artist-Led Tours of Kandinsky
All tours begin at 6:30 pm; receptions follow
$25; $20 members, students

Monday, October 19 Composer, artist, and performer who explores the temporal, verbal, and visual structures of cultural and personal ephemera, Dubois’s most recent work is a sonic and encyclopedic relative to time-lapse photography. A practitioner of Synesthesia, Dubois relays the correspondence between Vasily Kandinsky and composers Arnold Schoenberg and Alexander Scriabin while inviting the audience to experience an interpretive landscape of sound.

Tuesday December 8 Wednesday, December 9
Assume vivid astro focus (avaf) is an evolving artist collective of nomads born anytime between the 20th and 21st centuries in various parts of the world. They are known for creating ambitious and immersive installations that engage viewers in a dialogue with the architecture, culture, and history of the particular exhibition venue to create an enjoyably interactive art experience. Their work includes both two-dimensional and sculptural elements and often features performance, music, dance, and video.

Fall Family Day

Sunday, November 22, 2–5 pm
Bing your family and celebrate the museum’s architecture and the magical artwork of Vasily Kandinsky.

Film Screenings

New Media Theater
Free with museum admission

Art, Architecture, and Innovation: Celebrating the Guggenheim Museum
27 minutes
Fridays
Visit the Calendar and Events for times

Kandinsky: A Close Look
A Film by Grahame Weinbren
35 minutes
Fridays
Visit the Calendar and Events for times

Weinbren’s Kandinsky: A Close Look is an “anti-documentary,” three-part film utilizing custom high-definition technology. Each part focuses on a different 1913 painting by Kandinsky in the Guggenheim collection: Painting with White Border, Small Pleasures, and Black Lines. The three films—Essay, Eyetracking, and Synesthesia—provide some alternate ways of looking at and thinking about the work of this complex artist. Through a close examination of details, voiceovers, and an eye-tracking technology used by medical researchers, viewers are provided with enhanced visual tools to trace their own extended journeys through the paintings.

Non-Objective Films, 1920s–1950s: A program of artists supported by Hilla Rebay
Organized by the Center for Visual Music
Fridays
Visit the Calendar and Events for times

SYMPOSIA

The Universe Resounds: Kandinsky, Synesthesia, and Art
January 2010
Visit the Calendar and Events for dates and times

A multisession and interdisciplinary examination of painting, abstraction, and Synesthesia from modern to contemporary times including perspectives from art history, science, music, film, and performance.

Participants

Kerry Brougher, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.
Magdalena Dabrowski, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Caroline Jones, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
James Leggio, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn
Matthew Ritchie, New York
Lisa Randall, Cambridge, MA
David Soldier, Columbia University, New York

Hypermusic Prologue, A Projective Opera In Seven Planes
A collaboration by Hèctor Parra, Lisa Randall, and Matthew Ritchie

Co-organized by Science and The Arts at CUNY
Limit 30 participants
Moderators: Adrienne Klein and Grahame Weinbren
To RSVP, call 212 360 4355 or e-mail access@guggenheim.org.