On a cool autumnal night, Walker Art Center launched the 75th anniversary of its embrace of modern art with the Avant Garden benefit. The mostly black-clad guests were in the mood for fun. Spotlights lit up the trees in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden as guests nibbled savory bites and chevre-and-ham sandwiches drizzled with peach jam.

Mark Wheat of the Current (89.3 FM), the evening's MC, introduced Walker director Olga Viso to a crowd that included Kaywin Feldman of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Lyndel King from the Weisman Art Museum and Kristin Makholm of St. Paul's Minnesota Museum of American Art. Among the arty glamorati were ceramist Maren Kloppmann, painter and Walker board member Anne Labovitz, sculptor Chris Larson and sculptor/videographer Andrea Stanislav. As the sun set, former Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak loosed his inner paparazzo to snap cellphone photos of party guests silhouetted against the "Spoonbridge and Cherry" sculpture.