By Marilyn Bauer
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Sarah Stolar of San Francisco stands in the "participatory environment" of Italian installation artist Monica Bonvicini at the new Center for Contemporary Art. (Gary Landers photo) | ZOOM |

There are bound to be crowds.

The building itself is a draw.

The first freestanding art museum to be built in Cincinnati since 1886 and the first American museum designed by a woman, it is already winning accolades from the local, national and international press.

London-based architect Zaha Hadid has created a dramatic monument to modern art at Walnut and Sixth streets downtown. And tonight starting at 7 p.m., an estimated 6,000 visitors will enter the building, spilling out onto Walnut Street where a variety of performances are planned.

Prepare to be surprised.

The Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, as it is officially named, will open with the exhibition "Somewhere Better Than This Place: Alternative Social Experiences in the Spaces of Contemporary Art," which includes seven premier performances.

Senior curator Thom Collins has put together 66 works of art by 35 artists representing 21 countries. The show represents a new paradigm in museums: Visitors interact and experiment rather than just contemplate the work before them.

" 'Somewhere Better Than This Place' is the ideal exhibition to open the center's first freestanding home," says Charles Demarais, director of the center since 1995. "It explores the relationship between people and places - particularly art museums. ... (It) will maximize the interplay between the space, the art within its walls and the visitor."

You'll need a plan of attack, and a plan to come back again to fully appreciate this art-star-studded show. So we're highlighting 10 pieces you won't want to miss - now or later. Bring a bathing suit (if you dare), an appetite and an open mind.

No. 1 - Zhang Huan

If you see nothing else, you must see the commissioned performance by Zhang Huan, which will start around 7:30 p.m. His heavily symbolic work provides unexpected commentary on contemporary culture. For example, shortly after Sept. 11, he performed a piece at New York's Whitney Museum of American Art. Covered in a white cloth and transported on the shoulders of Chinese expatriates, Huan emerged dressed in a suit of meat molded to approximate the musculature of a bodybuilder. Taking to the streets in his meat suit and followed by assistants with birdcages, he handed out white doves to New Yorkers to hold, then release.

In Cincinnati, his props include an American flag, a policeman's uniform and 20 volunteers. Lobby

No. 2 - John Armleder: "Untitled (Global V)"

Swiss artist John Armleder creates a celestial experience with "Untitled (Global V)." Six mirrored disco balls with reversible motors are suspended over a gallery, covering the ceiling, floor and walls with tiny, undulating circles of light. Fourth floor

No. 3 - Cai Guo-Qiang: "Cultural Melting Bath: Project for the 20th Century"

In "Cultural Melting Bath: Project for the 20th Century," Cai Guo-Qiang has transformed a gallery space into a therapeutic, lunar landscape. Enormous scholar stones - porous and eroded into impossible shapes - create a haunted barrier for the hot tub at its core. Filled with medicinal Chinese herbs, the tub softly gurgles beneath an arrangement of bleached branches. Change into a bathing suit and jump in for a soak ... really. Second floor

No. 4 - "Cloud Prototype for an Edition of 3"

Although constructed from fiberglass and covered in titanium leaf, "Cloud Prototype for an Edition of 3," seems to be held aloft by airstreams. Hanging in the center of the center's largest gallery, it evokes both the cumulonimbus cloud on which it is modeled and the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb. Inigo Manglano-Ovalle, in collaboration with Douglas Garafolo, fabricated the sculpture from a composite computer image based on actual thunderclouds. Fourth floor

No. 5 - Pepon Osorio: "Badge of Honor"

The juxtaposition of the father and son's "rooms" in Pepon Osorio's "Badge of Honor" is a tragic portrait of an American family. Any joy you might feel from the over-the-top decor of the son's room soon vanishes when the boy and his father begin a dialogue on opposing screens mounted in each of the rooms. These are real people dealing with separation and fear of the future. Second floor

No. 6 - Yinka Shonibare: "Dorian Gray, Scenes 1-12"

In a re-imagining of the 1945 Albert Lewin film adaptation of Oscar Wilde's classic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, African artist Yinka Shonibare plays the Victorian dandy who remains young while his portrait ages. The gelatin and silver prints of the antihero in "Dorian Gray, Scenes 1-12"are striking in their portrayal of otherness and reverberate with Shonibare's dilemma of hiding aspects of his identity to gain acceptance in English society. Fourth floor

No. 7 - Lorna Simpson: "Easy to Remember"

Strolling into the dark alcove that houses Lorna Simpson's wall-sized black-and-white projection of humming lips is startling, to say the least. The first inclination is to identify the various African-American music-makers: Who is singing which part of "Easy to Remember," the title of the piece. But soon all the lips seem to merge, defying identification and suggesting how unimportant race is. Fourth floor

No. 8 - Janet Cardiff: "Forty-Part Motet"

Within Hadid's cathedral, Janet Cardiff has created a cathedral of her own by setting up 40 speakers in a darkened gallery to play back an a cappella (voice only) work by Renaissance composer Thomas Tallis. In "Forty-Part Motet," 40 voices transport the viewer to another reality. Fifth floor

No. 9 - Monica Bonvicini

Italian installation artist Monica Bonvicini strives to create a sensation. In this case it is the sensation of standing amid a cyclone with 75-mph winds. Two enormous industrial fans create cyclonic conditions, and visitors must work together to withstand the winds. There is no other object in the gallery, thus transforming the gallery itself into art. Fourth floor

No. 10 - Anthony Luensman: The UnMuseum

The 7,400-square-foot UnMuseum is bathed in sunlight and holds interactive sound and sculptural pieces aimed at children. Local artist Anthony Luensman has created a sound-producing chandelier, a player piano and an opportunity to direct the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Sixth floor