6:30 pm – Cocktails and Private Exhibition Viewing
8 pm – Dinner
9 pm – Rotunda Performance

Opening October 10, 2025, Robert Rauschenberg: Life Can’t Be Stopped marks the centennial of the artist’s birth and is presented as part of Guggenheim New York’s Collection in Focus series. In celebration of opening week, Works & Process presents a one-night-only rotunda project exploring Rauschenberg’s boundary-pushing collaborations with choreographers Trisha Brown and Paul Taylor.

The Trisha Brown Dance Company will perform an excerpt from Astral Converted (1991), originally commissioned by the National Gallery. The work incorporates Rauschenberg’s gleaming towers outfitted with motion sensors, lighting, and sound designed to detect the presence of dancers and respond to their movement John Cage’s score, an eight-track recording of live musicians, emanates from tapes embedded in mobile towers. When the work premiered, the audience was seated on the National Gallery’s gradually rising steps. For this iteration, the audience will stand on the spiraling ramps of the Guggenheim rotunda, offering a unique 360-degree perspective.

The Paul Taylor Dance Company will perform 3 Epitaphs (1956), a humorous yet brilliant exploration of posture and gesture set to early New Orleans jazz and featuring a parade of faceless dancers in gray leotards. In Tracer (1962), Taylor’s refined elegance and simplicity is joined by Rauschenberg’s spinning bicycle wheel, adding an amusing touch of anti-utilitarian art. The piece is an austere, experimental work where movement unfolds independently of the wheel’s presence, showcasing a playful yet thoughtful blend of gesture and décor.

Photos: Diane Madden, Lance Gries, Trisha Brown, and Robert Rauschenberg in Astral Converted (1991), choreography by Trisha Brown. Photo: Jack Mitchell; Lee Duveneck in Tracer, choreography by Paul Taylor. Photo: Steven Pisano