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Recent Acquisitions
Knotted chair, 1996
gilt aramid rope, carbon core, and epoxy
Marcel Wanders, designer
Dutch, b. 1963
Droog Design, design cooperative
Dutch, 1993-present
Martha Mack Lewis Fund, 2002
Photo © Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg, NY
Visitors to Panopticon:
An Art Spectacular will have an opportunity to see a new acquisition in
Decorative Arts, Marcel Wanders’ Knotted
Chair. Produced in 1996, early
in Wanders’ career, the chair is made of hand-knotted rope that was twisted
around a carbon core and covered in epoxy.
Despite the fact that its style evokes a hammock, the chair is
rigid, upsetting viewers’ preconceptions about how materials perform.
Wanders was a member of the Dutch collective Droog Design, which mediates
between designers and manufacturers, when the chair was produced.
“This chair has become an icon of contemporary design,”
explains Sarah Nichols, chief curator and curator of Decorative Arts, “and
is included in numerous museum collections.
The one that Carnegie Museum of Art has acquired is one of three
gilded versions.”
In Panopticon, the chair is grouped with other
chairs made of unusual or untraditional materials.
Panopticon: An Art Spectacular
Through
August, 2003
While a spirit of festivity prevails throughout Panopticon, some of the works on paper in
the third gallery will be rehung to reflect seasonally appropriate
themes. Henri Mattisse’s large
cut-out The Thousand and One Nights, long
a favorite of museum visitors, will immediately draw viewers in with its
appealing colors and its emphasis on story, a time-honored remedy for the
long nights of winter.
Mattisse
first began working with paper cut-outs in the 1930s, and by 1950, when
health had confined him to a wheel chair, he was producing large and
intricate works composed of multiple panels. The text in this piece, an unusual
inclusion for Matisse, states in French that “she saw morning appear/ she
discreetly fell silent,” and if the work itself is read from left to right,
we can see firelight giving way to sunlight, the black hearts along the top
becoming green and, for a while, no more threat of death.
Also
included will be Japanese winter subjects, such as ukiyo-e, or pictures of
the floating world. This type of art
was developed in what is now Tokyo from 1615 to 1868, peaceful years during
which the Tokugawa shoguns ruled Japan.
During that period, the merchant class had little political power,
and turned to art and culture as an entry into the world of the elite
classes. These works generally
depict common daily pleasures.
The
exhibition will also include Dutch 17th-century landscape prints
and drawings featuring Rembrandt, as well as a selection of winter subjects
by European and American 19th and 20th century
artists such as Grant Wood and
Martin Lewis.
Forum: Mel Bochner Photographs, 1966-69
Through
December 31
Pittsburgh native Mel Bochner is best known for
his work in Conceptual art, and most of his photography has never before
been seen in a museum exhibition.
Organized by Harvard University Art Museums, with guest curator
Scott Rothkopf, many of the photographs emphasize the theory behind
artistic practice. Bochner isolates
and explores the mechanics of artistic phenomena such as color, perspective
and scale that have played a crucial role in the history of Western
art.
Surface Dis/Tension, 1968
Rothkopf, who first came upon Bochner’s
photographs when he visited his studio in 1998 as an undergraduate at
Harvard College, explains Bochner’s interest in the photographs as objects
of art. Bochner “cared very much that his photographs be as interesting
to look at as they are to think about,” Rothkopf says. “In that sense his approach to the medium
differed from other Conceptual artists of the 60s, who generally avoided
highly crafted photographic prints. Yet Bochner's elaborate set-ups and
near endless manipulation of his negatives and prints has a lot in common
with the constructed and digitally manipulated photography so common today."
Mark Your Calendar
Guests at the annual Founder-Patrons Day celebration on
November 7 will have an opportunity to preview Out of the Ordinary: The
Architecture and Design of Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and
Associates, which opens to the public November 8. The exhibition is the first
restrospective of the work of this influential architectural firm. The evening begins with cocktails at 6:00
and dinner at 7:30. To receive an invitation,
call 412.578.2552.
Neapolitan Presepio
November
29 – January 9
Since 1957, traditional holiday activities in Pittsburgh
have included a trip to see the Neapolitan Presepio and the large trees in
the museum’s Hall of Architecture.
The Presepio, handmade between 1700 and 1830, covers 250 square
feet, and represents the Neapolitan concept of the nativity in a scene of
village life. More than 100
beautifully modeled figures include humans, angels, and animals, as well as
accessories and architectural elements.
The theme for the Christmas trees is “Carnegie Museum of
Art Celebrates its American Artists,” and each of the five trees will pay
homage to Alexander Calder, Stuart Davis, Keith Haring, Georgia O’Keefe,
and Andy Warhol. Each year, the
Women’s Committee of Carnegie Museum of Art chooses a theme and makes
ornaments by hand to decorate the towering trees, a project that takes many
months to complete.
Trees With Personality
This holiday season, the Women’s Committee at Carnegie
Museum of Art will begin a new tradition – Trees With Personality. Thirteen artificial trees will be
decorated by local celebrities, including Mr. Rogers, Kevin McClatchey,
Elin and Jim Roddey, Kathleen Mulcahy and Ron Desmett, Lynn Swann, Hilda
and Freddie Fu, Elsie and Henry Hillman, Burton Morris, Rose and Bill
Strickland, and members of Rusted Root, as well as by representatives from
the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Carnegie Science Center and the Pittsburgh
Zoo. Each of the trees will be raffled off Chinese Auction style, with
tickets selling for $10 each, except for Zoo tree tickets, which will sell
for $1 each to make them affordable for children. The raffle will be held
Dec. 15, and all proceeds will benefit the activities of the Women’s
Committee of Carnegie Museum of Art. Trees
With Personality will be on display at the Tree Preview Party on Dec. 4
and will be open to the public beginning Dec. 5.
Annual Special Guests Holiday Party
Monday, December 9, from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm.
Children and adults with special needs are invited to
enjoy the holiday displays, hosted by The Women's Committee, including
entertainment and refreshments. For
more information call 412.622.3325.
It’s Not Just
Mud! Centuries of Ceramics
December
14, 2002–Summer, 2003
Treasure
Room
Ceramic techniques have remained virtually unchanged for millennia,
but the ways artists express themselves in the medium are constantly
changing. It’s Not Just Mud! showcases the surprising beauty of ceramics
art objects through a wide-ranging survey of stoneware, earthenware, and
porcelain works. From Greek vases to
modern-day vessels and sculpture, the exhibition reveals the breadth and
depth of ceramic objects in the museum’s decorative arts collection.
And don’t miss What’s in Your Tureen: Soup, Stew, or Ragoût? This
popular, held-over exhibition matches ten tureens—ranging from elegant 18th-century
Meissen china to the utilitarian Crock-Pot®—with the recipes
they might have served. Through
December 1, 2002 in the Treasure Room.
Holiday Party Tradition Continues
CMA Cinema
Central Asian
Samples
November 16 – December 8
Saturdays at 7:30 pm
and Sundays at 6 pm (see calendar)
During the past decade, Central Asian republics of the
former Soviet Union – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and
Uzbekistan – have been producing feature films that have attracted
attention and praise in film festivals around the world. These films are rarely seen in the United
States, however, where our Hollywood focus has overlooked the quality and
diversity of these films, each made within a national film industry but
often sharing regional qualities.
The series includes the spectacular Kazkh epic The Fall of Otrar (made in 1991 but just now released)
depicting the intrigue and turmoil of the lost East Asian civilization of
Otrar and its destruction by Genghis Khan.
David Goodis
November 2 – 22
Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm (see calendar)
Pulp fiction writer David Goodis is only now being
rediscovered in the United States, but the French have never lost sight of
this noir author of the 1940s,
50s, and 60s. Like his peers
Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, several Goodis texts have found
their way to the screen. These
include Francois Truffaut’s Shoot the
Piano Player (1960), as well as Nightfall
(Jacques Tourneur, 1956), The Burglar
(Paul Wendkos, 1957), and Delmer Daves’ classic Dark Passage, starring Bogart and Bacall they same year they
played in Howard Hawks’ film of the Chandler novel The Big Sleep.
The Central Asian film
series will screen on Saturdays and Sundays-Saturday at 7:30 pm and Sunday
at 6 pm.
The Goodis series will
screen on two Saturdays and two Fridays-all at 7:30 pm.
Saturday, Nov. 2,
7:30PM : DARK PASSAGE (1947, Delmer Daves)
Saturday, Nov. 9, 7:30PM : NIGHTFALL
(1956, Jaques Tourneur)
Friday, Nov. 15, 7:30PM : THE BURGLAR (1957,
Paul Wendkos)
Friday, Nov. 22,
7:30PM : SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER (1960, Francois Truffaut)
Make a Luncheon Date with Art
Lunch and Learn
Preregistration
required. Call 412.622.3288. Fee includes lunch in the Carnegie
Café. Thurs., 10:30 a.m.–2:00 p.m.;
members $22.
Have a Seat: The Art of the Chair
November 21
From
simple stools to elegant thrones, the history of the chair is laden with
social and symbolic meaning. Sarah
Nichols, chief curator and curator of decorative arts will explore the
cultural and design history of chairs and conduct a tour, after lunch, of
the large and diverse selection of chairs on view in Panopticon: An Art
Spectacular.
The Innovative Architecture of
Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown
Dec. 12
In the
last four decades, architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown have
up-ended the architectural establishment with an approach that integrates
popular culture and classical forms.
Tracy Myers, associate curator of architecture, provides an overview
of their inventive projects in a slide-illustrated talk. After lunch, a tour will be provided of
the Heinz Architectural Center exhibition, Out of the Ordinary: The
Architecture and Design of Robert Venturi Denise Scott Brown and Associates.
Store Item
Alesi (architectural household items)
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