Single-Artist Shows Address
Life’s Most Fundamental Issues

When the 2004–5 Carnegie International opens on October 9, the exhibition will feature some 400 works by 38 artists from around the world. Many of these artists are young, emerging talents, others are well established within the art world, and three, in particular, have been making art for decades. These three artists—American sculptor Lee Bontecou; father of underground comics and chronicler of human behavior Robert Crumb; and art critic and “anti-artist” Dimitrije BasŠicŠevic´ who worked under the pseudonym of Mangelos—are highlighted in retrospective exhibitions within the show.

The three artists were selected because they “represent an attitude toward art-making—that it is a meaningful vehicle through which to untangle some of life’s most fundamental issues—that is relevant for a number of younger artists working today,” says Laura Hoptman, curator of the Carnegie International. “There are no morphological connections between the work of these three artists, nor did they know one another. In a sense, they are three of 38 artists—no different from the other artists in the exhibition. But because they are older and have a lifetime of work behind them, we thought it important to emphasize all that they have done, not just their most recent work.” 

Robert Crumb
Known as the father of underground “comix,” self-taught illustrator Robert Crumb has produced thousands of drawings and comic strips. Although greatly influenced by classic comic strips from the 1930s, Crumb’s content clearly reflects current society.

His work in comics began in 1967 San Francisco, a hotbed of social unrest and hippie counterculture, with the publication of Zap Comix #01. By taking a popular cultural genre—comic strips—that previously had been thought of as strictly for children, and creating work for adults that addressed social issues like drugs, sex, race, and gender, Crumb inspired hundreds of imitators and acolytes. However, his work remains unique in the genre of comics. His new form of comic strip was dubbed “comix”—the deliberate misspelling delineating its difference from the typical kid’s comic book.

Many of Crumb’s characters, such as “Mr. Natural,” the hippie guru of “Keep on Truckin’” fame, became icons of anti-establishment pop culture, though Crumb was never a hippie or a member of any subculture or group himself. His later works include scathing social satires on American culture and Americans, themselves.

Lee Bontecou
Since the 1950s, Lee Bontecou’s art has reflected both the beauty and cruelty of the natural world and the humans who inhabit it. From her 1950s sculptures of welded steel with stretched canvas to her vacuum-formed plastic fish of the 1970s to her work today, Bontecou’s art has evolved while continuing to reflect her abiding interest in nature, science, and technology.

She has written, “Since my early years till now, the natural world with all its visual wonders and horrors—man-made devices with its mind-boggling engineering feats and destructive abominations, the elusive human nature and its multi-ramifications of the sublime to unbelievable abhorrences—to me are all one. It is in the spirit of those feelings that the primary influences on my work have occurred.”

Mangelos
Croatian art historian and critic Dimitrije Basicevic´created art under the pseudonym Mangelos, producing works that focused on systems of expression such as thinking, language, and even art.

Using text and calligraphy, Mangelos expressed his philosophy by painting
manifestos on book pages, globes, school slates, and exercise books in a palette of black, red, white, and occasionally gold. A product of post-war Yugoslavia, Mangelos’ preoccupation with overarching systems of control is not surprising. The idea that technology has replaced human imagination as the engine that drives the creation of art recurs throughout his writings and his art objects, many of which are tinged with satire.

In his 1977 “Moscow manifesto” Mangelos wrote: “ART IS DEAD and so is the old/naive way of thinking. There are no/profound thoughts only functional ones….art lost its social function with the advent of the machine.”

Get Wrapped Up in It Carnegie International
Programs and Events
Every few years, the Carnegie International introduces Pittsburgh audiences to some of the most exciting contemporary art from around the world. Get involved in the International by attending performances, programs, and events that will bring the exhibition to life for viewers of all ages and backgrounds. Visit www.cmoa.org
for a complete schedule.

Opening Weekend Performances:
Oct. 9
1 p.m. – “Film” by Pawel Althamer – Actors will perform 30 minutes of daily life, assuming the roles of typical Pittsburgh passersby.

4 p.m. – Artist Katarzyna Kozyra – This work is the culmination of a two-year-long project in which the artist has made a serious attempt to fulfill her lifelong wish to become an opera singer.

Oct. 9 & 10:
Noon, 2, 3 p.m. – Artist Trisha Donnelly – Performed daily in the Hall of Architecture, this five-minute performance is a poetry reading
performed in costume.

Tours, Programs, and Events:
Daily Tours
Drop-in, docent-guided tours will take place daily, Tuesdays through Sundays at 1:30 p.m. and on Saturdays and Sundays again at 3 p.m.

Oct. 8: Opening Gala Party
7:30 p.m., $150 per person includes buffet dinner, drinks, and entertainment
For reservations/information, call 412.578.2552 or email internationalgala@carnegiemuseums.org

Oct. 10: Members’ Opening Party
5-8 p.m., Free for museum members
For reservations/information, call 412.622.3314 or email membership@carnegiemuseums.org

Oct. 15: Curator Laura Hoptman
6 p.m., Carnegie Museum Lecture Hall
Join Curator of the 2004-5 Carnegie International Laura Hoptman for personal insights on some of the art and artists in this 54th installation.

Oct. 21: Artist Julie Mehretu
5 p.m., Carnegie Mellon University,
McConomy Auditorium
Julie Mehretu’s paintings dance around the history of both abstraction and representation. Her unmistakable style and palette mine a confluence of visual sources.

Oct. 28: Artist Senga Nengudi
5 p.m., Carnegie Mellon University,
McConomy Auditorium
An important figure in the African-American avant-garde of the 1960s and 1970s, Senga Nengudi helped establish a funk aesthetic that brought traditional African forms into the mix of Western modernism.

Oct. 30: Artist Senga Nengudi with Filmmaker Linda Goode Bryant
2 p.m., Carnegie Museum Lecture Hall
Delve deeper into the work and life of artist Senga Nengudi through the eyes of nationally acclaimed filmmaker Linda Goode Bryant.

ART in the Making
In the spirit of experimental architecture, interns assist Lebbeus Woods with exhibition installation

Photos: Tom Altany

It’s Friday, July 23, and six young men and women are lifting and lugging a 24-foot-long, aluminum colored table across an empty room in the Heinz Architectural Center. There’s not enough clearance at one end to walk around the table, which will hold architectural models. “Pivot it here and swing it around,” says Lebbeus Woods, whose exhibition they are helping to install. Woods looks at his plan, looks back at the room, and comments, “We’ve got a problem here guys. It’s time to design on the spot.”

The exhibition being installed is Lebbeus Woods: Experimental Architecture. To help bring Woods’ vision to life, a number of unpaid interns worked for two weeks to serve as Woods’ hands. Kristen Roddey, exhibitions associate, says, “The interns’ work included bending 200 aluminum tubes and stacking them to create The Tangle and laying out large, interlocking panels of aluminum that create a pathway of words through the exhibition.”

The interns also assembled enormous images reproduced from Woods’ drawings, each more than nine feet high and as large as 21 feet wide. The Tangle is a drawing in space made of bent aluminum tubes. Working closely with Woods, the interns worked with experienced workshop staff members, who handled the more technical side of the installation using blowtorches, drills, and other tools of the trade.

Unlike typical fine art exhibitions, which are entirely mounted by experienced art handlers, this exhibition of enormous tilting prints and dramatic models of Woods’ experimental architecture could be installed by anyone up to the task. The three lead interns—Rachel Myers, Doug Crain, and Ian Clemente—viewed this exhibition as a great opportunity to gain hands-on experience working with a living artist.

Crain says he joined the team because “this particular show is more than an environment housing Lebbeus Woods’ work; it’s an environment created by his work.” The interns especially enjoyed the fact that they were part of the creative process. Myers found the project appealing because of the spontaneity. “We were making art
as we went along,” she says.

This concept complements the experimental nature of Woods’ work, according to Tracy Myers, Museum of Art curator of architecture and the show’s organizer. “He gave some of the information and then allowed for a certain amount of chaos and creativity,” explains Myers. “What is unusual in this show is that many decisions were made during the installation—all in the spirit of experimental architecture. It’s improvisational. It’s the difference between working closely with the architect and asking an architect to send us framed works to hang.”

West Meets East: Asian Influences on European Decorative Arts
Side chair, c. 1882
Christian Herter, Designer; Herter Brothers, Maker (American); gilded maple, mother-of-pearl inlay and embroidered silk, Dupuy Fund.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, trade routes opened the once mysterious Far East to European traders. Only the wealthiest westerners could afford to purchase the rare and exotic decorative objects that began to trickle out of China and other Asian countries. Soon, European interiors and decorative arts began to show signs of Asian influence. By the 19th century, when Japan opened its once guarded borders to foreigners, “Japan mania” ensued, particularly in America.

On Monday, October 25, two leading experts on Asian-influenced decorative arts will speak at the 27th Annual Women’s Committee Decorative Arts Symposium. Danielle Groshëide, associate curator of European sculpture and decorative arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will speak about the importance and role of lacquer in the 17th and 18th centuries. Writer and lecturer Cheryl Robertson will address the Japanese mania that took America by storm after the Civil War, and later influenced both the Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts Movements.

For more information and reservations, please call Jenny Treganowan at 412.578.2624.

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