Rarely has the giant internal ramp of Manhattan's circular Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, been put to better use. A visitor attending the Guggenheim's fifth International Exhibition can proceed downward through its five spirals, passing 100 works by 80 sculptors from 20 countries arranged by generation—and thereby receive a gradual baptism into the myriad ways that sculpture has evolved in the past 20 years.
For the first time the Guggenheim International is devoted exclusively to sculpture, but that, says Associate Curator Edward Fry, 32, who spent two years and traveled to 30 countries in preparation for it,...