In this astonishing work, German composer and director Heiner Goebbels takes as his inspiration the writings of the 19th-century Romantic author Adalbert Stifter, who predicted many of the ecological challenges that face us today. Five pianos play as in-motion sculptural works, the writings of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Malcolm X, and William S. Burroughs are interspersed with songs from Papua New Guinea, haunting projected imagery, and even wind and mist are all combined in this unique, fantastical environment.

From the matriarch of exploratory French theater comes a truly visionary play that, at its root, asks life’s ultimate question: What would you do if the end of the world were imminent? With Les Éphémères, based not on text but on the ordinary circumstances of our everyday lives, the brilliant and widely influential director Ariane Mnouchkine once again delves into the core of our sensibilities. Mnouchkine’s theater collective, Le Théâtre du Soleil, explores personal stories of pain and compassion in episodes that reflect our common experiences to find meaning in the mundane.

Inspired by Ernesto Neto’s anthropodino, Shen Wei Dance Arts, (directed by Shen Wei, choreographer for Opening Ceremony, Beijing Olympics 2008), created a site-specific response within the immersive sculpture. With live music by Tom Chiu (Flux Quartet) and guests.

anthropodino, a large-scale, interactive sculpture by world-renowned artist Ernesto Neto, suspends a gigantic canopy from the drill hall’s latticework truss, spanning 120 feet wide and 180 feet long. Magnificent, aromatic “fabric stalactites” descend 60 feet to embrace a vast labyrinth of passageways and rooms.

The Armory became the Convergence Center for Democracy in America: The National Campaign. For this exhibition, the Wade Thompson Drill Hall was transformed into an indoor public square and-along with the historic rooms-hosted installations, performances, and speeches by over forty artists.

Lincoln Center Festival 2008, in association with Park Avenue Armory presented an epic production of Bernd Zimmerman's opera Die Soldaten in the Wade Thompson Drill Hall, where movable seating on railway tracks enabled the audience to experience extremes of intimacy and overwhelming all-enveloping sound.

The Miller Theatre in association with Park Avenue Armory presented our first orchestral concert, a program of Sacred Masterpieces by Igor Stravinsky. Filling the extraordinary vastness of the Armory’s Wade Thompson Drill Hall the Vox Vocal Ensemble and Gotham City orchestra, under the direction of George Steel, offered four ground-breaking masterpieces.

For the first time, Whitney collaborated with Park Avenue Armory and Art Production Fund (APF) to provide the Biennial with a second venue. The Armory was the setting for a series of performances, temporary installations, events, and other public programs by Biennial artists, creating an opportunity to present works that could not be accommodated within the Whitney’s walls, but remain true to the fluid, interactive way in which these works were conceived.

Park Avenue Armory presented High Resolution: Artists Projects at the Armory, curated by Tom Eccles and Trevor Smith of CCS Bard. Site-specific installations were created by Spencer Finch, Lisi Raskin, and Pietro Roccasalva in three separate historic rooms while monitors arrayed down the center of the South Hall displayed videos by such artists including Dennis Oppenheim, Takeshi Murata, and Pipilotti Rist.

​With the Art Production Fund, Park Avenue Armory presented its first contemporary art exhibit. Artist Aaron Young’s Greeting Card was described by New York Times writer Roberta Smith as “stunning”-a showcase of the Armory as a unique art venue.