The Guggenheim celebrates its 50th Anniversary with Tino Sehgal's creations

Entering the Guggenheim on Persident's Day there were dozens of people walking and talking along the rotundas devoid of any paintings, installations, sculptures, or photographs. Museumgoers were engaging not with traditional art, but with conversation, which also allows for people to appreciate Frank Lloyd Wright's innovative structure. In Tino Sehgal's "This Progress" different performers, or “interpreters,“ approach people with questions and thoughts as they walk up the rotundas. Although it sounds kind of odd, the performers have been trained to make these short and thought-provoking conversations seamless. As my friends and I ascended the ramp, a young girl looks on and then approaches and says, “Can I ask you question?”

Tatiana, 11, cheerfully asks, “What is progress?” Catching us by storm, one of us comes up with a general answer. As Tatiana skips along the empty museum she asks for example after example. As we walk thinking and scrambling for answers, we are approached by a young man, Jake. Tatiana greets him and says, “I was told that progress is a gradual change. Like when a seed becomes a flower and when a person matures.”

Jake flows with this idea of maturity and engages us with an anecdote of how he enjoys doing things that please his inner 6-year-old. He doesn’t allow for the three of us to merely listen, he steers the conversation so there's a flow and ease as we walk. As we are approaching a conclusion that there has to be a balance between following basic norms and cultivating individuality, a man in his forties introduces a blog in which individuals advocate and propose laws. Jake slowly drifts away and our new "interpreter" asks how we would go about making an active change. And as our conversation continues he allows us to pause and think, to babble, and to share our understandings. We are than approached by Barabara, an older woman, who talks about her creative granddaughter and limiting son. Barbara engages us with funny stories that highlight her granddaughter’s imagination and smoothly transitions the conversation to our own habits and contemplations on the molding of people.

Then almost unfortunately she informed us that there was an exhibit to the right and coolly said, “This is Tino Sehgal’s ‘This Progress.’” We didn’t rush to see the exhibit instead we looked over the top to see how the slow-motion, embracing couple on the floor were holding up. Another creation piece by the German artist, Sehgal named the “The Kiss.”

They roll and stand, kiss and cuddle, touch and feel in an empty space surrounded by those who watch and those who ignore. “I thought they were a random couple,” says Omari Thompson, 20, “usually they’ll be a placard or something to explain.” He felt having them there was odd yet bedazzling.

Carl Muller, an employee of the Guggenheim for the past 15 years, explained that there are three pairs every three hours. “People are allowed to go as close to the performers as they want,” Muller explains, “as long as they don’t interfere.” He also mentions that “This Kiss” is on loan from MoMa and they have to follow strict regulations for it not to be documented. Danielle Stein, reported for W magazine that Sehgal has "about five legal stipulations of the purchase: that the work be installed only by someone whom Seh­gal himself has authorized via training and prior collaboration; that the people enacting the piece be paid an agreed-upon minimum; that the work be shown over a minimum period of six weeks (in order to avoid seeming more like a theatrical event than an art exhibition); that the piece not be photographed; and that if the buyer resells the work, he does so with this same oral contract." Muller tries to enforce the restrictions as much as he can throughout the museum, but it was obvious that everybody was sneakily angling their camera phones towards the center of the ground floor. This does not change Sehgal's main intention, which is for participants to leave with a dynamic experience that is irreproducible.

“Contemplating the Void” is an exhibit that showcases the 250 submissions from artists around the world on ideas of how to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the museum. They chose to empty the rotundas for the first time, which brings significance to the museum itself. Instead of going through the Guggenheim with a mental checklist it has people engage and recognize the magnificent space. This exhibit showcases that although the spiraling rotundas may be void materialistically it has the power with the guidance of Sehgal's work to captivate.

Tino Sehgal at the Guggenheim till March 10^th.

*Photos (Guggenheim skylight and Tino Sehgal) : Creative Commons