A Glimpse Inside the Guggenheim’s Luminous Young Collectors Council Party

The Guggenheim rotunda is not exactly a shy room, but on Thursday night, it got the full party treatment. For the 2026 Young Collectors Council Party, Diane Severin Nguyen, this year’s YCC Artist Collaborator, worked with LG OLED technology to bring a glowing circuit of video, projection, and sound to Frank Lloyd Wright’s spiral. A vast video wall rose from the rotunda floor. Projections climbed up the ramps. Downstairs, in the auditorium, a woozy soundscape offered a soft landing for anyone who needed a break from the action. Presented by LG Electronics, the annual fundraiser marked the Young Collectors Council’s 30th anniversary and kept the museum full until well past midnight.

The evening began with a standing dinner in the rotunda for cochairs, the host committee, and honored guests. GOURMEGA, Ghetto Gastro’s new supper club, sent bites through the room while Maison Ruinart poured the champagne. Casa Dragones handled the tequila, including a sculptural ice luge and the night’s most dangerous crowd favorite: the Cosmo-Not, an edible, flower-topped cocktail. HEYTEA, a recent addition to Chinatown’s tea scene, passed cups crowned with its signature salty cream-cheese foam, clouds floating over jasmine green tea and fresh-fruit blends.

Toward the end of dinner, the room quieted as Mariët Westermann, Director and CEO of the Guggenheim, took the floor with Seol Park of LG Corp. and Don Kwack, President and CEO of LG Electronics North America, to toast Trevor Paglen, this year’s LG Guggenheim Award recipient. Part of the LG Guggenheim Art and Technology Initiative, the prize recognizes one artist each year for major achievement in technology-based art. Paglen works across photography, video, sculpture, and writing, mapping surveillance states, classified operations, and the new politics of artificial intelligence and image culture.

Then the doors swung wider, and hundreds more guests streamed in for the dance party. The dress code was “In your Element,” and guests channeled earth, air, water, and fire through slick silks, molten metallic, water-sign blues, fiery reds, and enough seismic jewelry to give the rotunda its own weather system. A mirrored LED dance floor lit up beneath the crowd. The Muses kicked off the DJ rotation, followed by nguyendowsXP, Dylan Rhee, and Angel + Dren.

Off the main floor, the usual photo booth was replaced by Aura Journey, where guests placed their palms on a pair of electrified pads while a long-exposure Polaroid camera caught rings of color radiating from their bodies: their aura, allegedly. Elsewhere, partygoers drifted up Wright’s ramps with Cosmo-Nots in hand, weaving through Carol Bove’s rotunda-filling exhibition. Her crushed and bent steel forms, painted in saturated color, became convenient landmarks for finding friends from above. From the upper levels, the whole evening spun below: drinks flashing, phones glowing, dresses catching the light, the dance floor flickering like a tiny city.

Proceeds from the evening benefit the Young Collectors Council Art Fund, which has spent three decades supporting education initiatives and helping the Guggenheim acquire contemporary work for its permanent collection. Several artists whose work entered the museum through YCC support, including Anthony Akinbola, Jes Fan, Lucia Hierro, Tommy Kha, Baseera Khan, and Rachel Rossin, were seen on the dance floor.

YCC cochairs Sophia Cohen, Hannah Gottlieb-Graham, Alyssa Yoon, and Tiffany Zabludowicz led the night alongside 2026 Party cochairs Elizabeth Chung, Victoria Som de Cerff Edmonds, Paul Henkel, Lucas Hoffmann, Elizabeth Holden, Elle Pérez, Ilana Savdie, Dakota Sica, and Eden Xu-Martinez. The host committee included Hannah Choady Milburn, Sophia Kianni, Margot Hauer-King, Whitney Lane, Denna Nazem, Lux Pascal, Giancarlo Roma, Isabel Timerman, and Tinx.

See more highlights from the evening below: