The Guggenheim’s International Gala tonight promises to be something extraordinary amid an onslaught of art parties this season culminating in the social frenzy that is Art Basel Miami Beach.

The galas for the other contemporary art-friendly institutions have already passed, and they were all beautiful events. The Whitney had Richard Tuttle do an installation; Dia put up a gigantic timeline to tell its story.

But tonight is the event people will talk about, transforming it, one hopes, from the event that was okay to skip into one you won’t want to miss.

Artists in the crowd count for a lot. Tonight, the Guggenheim will honor Matthew Barney, Richard Prince, Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, and Richard Serra.Also assembling will be the city’s big deal art dealers and collectors such as the Glimchers of PaceWildenstein and Barbara Gladstone.Then there’s the glamorous Lauren Hutton and international music star Bjork.The chatter of the party is sure to be carried out in several different languages, given the Guggenheim’s international scope and the fact that many foreigners are in town for the auctions at Christie’s and Sotheby’s.

The most dramatic moments are likely to be during the live auction by Simon de Pury. On the block are works by the honorees, as well as artists John Baldessari, Roni Horn, Nikki S. Lee, and Anna Gaskell. Collectors have been eyeing these works since Thursday, when they went on view at Phillips, de Pury.With the auction season in high gear, people are in the mood to buy.

Mr. Baldessari’s “The Overlap Series: Two Persons (Aghast)/Construction Zone” (2001) is valued at $120,000-$150,000 and features a movie still and two other panels, one a photograph of a construction site, the other a digital and painted image that interprets the others.

Mr. Prince’s “My First Girl” (2005), estimated at $250,000-$300,000, contains the words “I Met My First Girl, Her Name Was Sally. Was That a Girl, Was That a Girl. That’s What People Kept Asking.”

When the event planning started last spring, the chairwomen, Ms. Hutton, Louise Blouin MacBain, and Jennifer Blei Stockman were hoping for 300 guests. Now there are 460 people signed up with more than 60 on a waiting list, including members of the museum’s International Director’s Council.

The museum’s staff has been working through the weekend to determine who sits where. Because there’s someone important at every table, these are no easy decisions.

The event will showcase the Seagram Building, the Four Seasons restaurant, and the space on the plaza – used by special arrangement of its owner, and museum supporter, Aby Rosen.Guests will enter the Seagram Building lobby via 52nd Street, and proceed to the Four Seasons through the crosspiece with the stunning Picasso, an approach rarely used by diners. Museum leadership, including the director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Thomas Krens, and the director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Lisa Dennison, will be there to greet the festively dressed crowd (Ms. Dennison is wearing Donna Karan).

With the Four Seasons catering, the food certainly will be above par. During lunch in the Grill Room last month, Julian Niccolini presented menu options to Ms. Stockman and a member of the host committee, the photographer Caryl Englander.The foie gras was divine, but do men eat it? Were the lamb chops too rich? On the final menu: risotto served in a pumpkin, striped bass wrapped in phyllo, and mont blanc for dessert.

This weekend, more than 50 workmen were on the scene, laying down plush, off-white carpet and lining the pillars and walls of the tent with panels of chocolate brown leaves – a color custom-ordered by the event designer David Monn (who last week signed on to design the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Ball for the second year in a row). The color scheme, white and chocolate, is Mr. Monn’s personal favorite, and is reflected at this event in the lampshades, tablecloths, chairs, and centerpieces.

During dinner, plasma screens will project black-and-white photographs from the Guggenheim’s archives, showing its locations in New York; Berlin; Bilbao, Spain, and Venice, Italy.

Mr. Monn tells us a modern scent will fill the tent, just one of the dozens of small details that make his events memorable. And the Guggenheim has come up with a most memorable parting gift: a series of prints of the Guggenheim packaged in a thick brown envelope.

It all starts tonight at 7.

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President Clinton accepted the New School’s Fiorello H. La Guardia Award on Thursday, helping the school raise $1.4 million for scholarships, including a new scholarship named in his honor. In remarks, he noted his affinity with the New School’s president, Robert Kerrey, who served as governor of Nebraska when Mr. Clinton was governor of Arkansas. “I was thrilled when Bob moved to New York, so I wouldn’t look like the only red-state governor that hightailed it out of town,” Mr. Clinton said. On a serious note, he praised the New School’s Milano School for preparing men and women for careers in civil society. “This work is more important than ever before, and you have more opportunity than ever before,” he said.The Milano School’s dean, Fred Hochberg, was a member of Mr. Clinton’s Oval Office staff.

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After resigning from his post at the Museum of Modern Art on Thursday, Terence Riley put on a tuxedo and was master of ceremonies for the Aid for AIDS gala that evening at Capitale. Mr. Riley serves the organization as treasurer, and at the gala, he was sounding more like an accountant than an architect.

“What this group does is accumulate the waste of the American AIDS establishment and get it to the countries that are desperate for it,” Mr. Riley said. “The $400,000 raised tonight will translate into $4 million in AIDS medications,” he said.

agordon@nysun.com