NEW YORK— The Museum of Modern Art's Agnes Gund Garden was flush with Vineyard Vines at Tuesday night’s opening of industrial designer Ron Arad’s exhibit “No Discipline.” The Upper East Side seemed out in full bloom — the crowd spilling from MoMA’s lobby onto the museum’s various patios, many wearing white sundresses or pink skinny ties, was almost definitely bound for the Hamptons come Friday.

The reception, like the season, had an easygoing atmosphere, with music by the Smiths, TV on the Radio, and Curtis Mayfield playing subtly inside — “Nothing too overpowering,” said a friend of the DJ's from behind the booth. Six floors up, Arad’s show has a similar vibe, which the museum is describing as “wonderment” in its summer ad campaign. The centerpiece, Cage sans Frontieres (Cage Without Borders), takes up the entire length of MoMA’s gallery with its 126.5-foot-long, 16-foot-tall Corten and stainless-steel frame. Displayed on both the interior and exterior of the piece is a series of chairs in materials ranging from cold steel to bright superplastic, crafted over the past 20 years of the designer’s career.

The crowd in the gallery was slightly more varied than at the party below, including a toddler with a teddy bear whose father was overheard saying, “Let’s find you a chair you can sit in.” She was next seen demonstrating the functionality of Arad’s 2008 work Do-Co-Res, a structure made of wool and carpet that served as seating outside the main exhibition.

Dangling throughout the show’s dim rooms were works serving as light fixtures, often reflecting off stainless, mirrored pieces. “The light is so beautiful,” Betty Lee Stern, a frequent donor to the museum, said of Ge-Off Sphere. She then ran off to find her husband so he could see the piece, and over her shoulder said of Arad, “I have many of his pieces from years ago, when he first started.”

Other museum supporters in attendance were President Emerita Agnes Gund, Senior Curator Paola Antonelli, Chief Curator Klaus Biesenbach, and MoMA Director Glenn Lowry and Chairman Jerry Speyer. Artist Francisco Clemente and French actor Patrick Timsit also stopped by.

Click on the photo gallery at left to see pictures from the opening.