Birthday Performance Art

The performance artist Marina Abramovic wanted to put a drop of her own blood in the cocktail she developed with artist Ektoras Binikes for her birthday party at the Guggenheim Saturday night. The safetyminded curatorial staff at the museum didn’t go for it, or for her second proposal, using her own tears. So instead Ms. Abramovic slept for seven days with a silk pouch of red pepper powder under her pillow, and that’s what became the magic ingredient in “The Marina Abramovic.” Also in the drink, which had a dramatic deep red color and tasted like a Pym’s cup: Miller’s gin, blood orange juice, yuzu, bitters, kumquats, and 60-year-old balsamic vinegar.

Ms. Abramovic also carefully planned the dinner menu for the event, which she described as a “multicultural fusion between the European Union and American democracy, designed to strengthen the body and elevate the soul.” There was Serbian lamb “cooked without Transylvanian garlic” and rolls served with sweet butter made from “the purest goat milk FedExed especially for the occasion from the Guggenheim construction site in Abu Dhabi.”

The fact that her birth date is November 30 did not dilute the birthday theme. Björk and Antony Hegarty sang “Happy Birthday” when the cake came out. Ms. Abramovic told of guests dancing the tango at her 50th birthday party in Belgium; on this night, entertainment was more mellow, with Mr. Hegary singing in his slow, trilly voice, “To Know Him Is to Love Him” by Phil Spector and “Perfect Day” by Lou Reed, who sat just a few feet away tapping his feet.

The event coincided with the completion of the book and film of the project “Seven Easy Pieces,” which she presented at the museum in 2005.

Modern Hospitality

Architecture critic Paul Goldberger called it the secondbest place to celebrate Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, Conn.: Johnson’s power dining room in New York, the Four Seasons restaurant. At the event Friday, the executive director of the Glass House, Christy Maclear, wore a T-shirt she designed that read, “Modern, under 50, yet worth preserving.” For the right price, folks can get into the Glass House before the official opening June 23: the National Trust for Historic Preservation is arranging dinner parties there for $50,000, with most of the proceeds supporting the effort to create a new kind of house museum.