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Opera in a box
Janet Cardiff, George Bures Miller, Opera for a Small Room (detail), 2005. Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York. © Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, 2005
During the 1999 Carnegie International, Janet Cardiff’s 18-minute video walk In Real Time led visitors on a journey through neighboring Carnegie Library by way of a hand-held video camera. Now, Cardiff’s imaginative work is back, and this time she’s partnered with another think-outside-the-box new media artist, George Bures Miller, to create Opera for a Small Room. On view March 15 through July 19, the Heinz Gallery installation introduces viewers to the quirky world of R. Dennehy, the owner of a collection of opera records that the duo purchased at a second-hand store in British Columbia, Canada. A box-like structure pulsates with sound and light, filled to the brim with nearly 2,000 records and eight record players that turn on and off in sync with a soundtrack. Visitors can peer in but can’t enter this theatrical work, where music and lights take center stage.
 Not your grandfather’s chandelier
For the Viva Vetro! Glass Alive! Venice and America exhibition in 2007, Italian artist Maria Grazia Rosin reinterpreted the most renowned of Venetian forms, the glass chandelier. For the upcoming Forum Gallery installation, opening March 21, Rosin, a science lover, looked to marine and microscopic creatures for inspiration. The result is a self-proclaimed “seductive sensory machine”—an immersive installation of 20 illuminated glass chandelier-like sculptures suspended in a strange environment of sound and video.
Maria Grazia Rosin, Folpo (octopus), 2007, blown by Sergio Tiozzo, glass and halogen lighting,
Courtesy Caterina Tognon Arte Contemporanea, Venice Photo: Francesco Allegretto
 It’s an Equustravaganza!
On the heels of the February opening of The Horse, the museum will host a festival of all things equestrian. Visitors have license to “horse around” from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, March 21, while learning about shoeing, grooming, tack, and more. Visit with a live horse, talk with competitive riders, try on equipment, and learn everything you’ve ever wanted to know about horses from a variety of experts and clubs. Free with admission.
And this spring, don’t miss select Thursday-night tours and expert lectures about all things horse. On March 26, the focus is on the family life and social structure of wild horses; April 2, learn about the horse as a power source in 19th-century Pittsburgh; April 9, celebrate three centuries of Equine art with artist Karen Kasper; and on May 7, Emmy award-winning filmmaker Ginger Kathrens talks about her remarkable encounters with a wild pale palomino colt she named Cloud. Tours begin at 6:30 p.m., followed by a lecture in Carnegie Lecture Hall at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $13, call 412.622.3288 to register.
 Celebrating Earth’s big day
Learn a planet full of reasons to better care for Mother Earth during an early Earth Day celebration on Saturday, April 18. Children can choose from a host of programs—from a guided tour about animal adaptations, to a theater performance about an enchanted forest, to hands-on projects including a design-your-own re-usable tote bag and paint-your-own pictures that showcase the life cycles of Monarch butterflies. An extra special treat: The first 100 people to visit Earth Theater receive NASA gifts in honor of Earth’s big day, including CDs filled with fabulous NASA imagery, holographic posters, Earth Update software, posters, and bookmarks.
 A cosmic good time
Get lost in space at the Science Center’s three-day celebration of all things astronomical! To kick off the International Year of Astronomy, the Science Center is hosting Space Out! Weekend, March 27-29, featuring the debut of an all-new planetarium show, Two Small Pieces of Glass, marking the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first use of the telescope to study the night sky. Also learn how to star-hop, try out the best commercial and homebuilt telescopes, and get a close-up gander at meteorites and moon rocks. Mission Control is the high-definition Buhl Digital Dome and, weather permitting, special stargazing sessions will be held atop the Science Center’s roof.
Dive in!
 Immerse yourself in a world that can be incredibly small yet larger-than-life: Under the Sea, a journey filmed in some of the most exotic and isolated destinations on the planet. The biggest screen in Pittsburgh will take you to the ocean floor in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and southern Australia for a spectacular underwater adventure that puts you face-to-face with all kinds of fascinating sea creatures: from sea turtles to the legendary great white shark. Showing in the Rangos Omnimax Theater, this wonder-what-will-come-next IMAX® adventure is narrated by Jim Carrey. Check www.CarnegieScienceCenter.org for show times.
 May the force be with you
Once and for all, The Andy Warhol Museum has gone to the dark side. Now on view: the one-of-a-kind project that invited the world’s hottest Pop artists to trick out the ominous headgear of one of the most recognizable pop icons in film history, Darth Vader.
The Vader Project, which debuted in Los Angeles in May 2007 on the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, showcases a hipster makeover of the Dark Lord of the Sith, courtesy of 100 of the world’s “it” Pop, street, and underground artists—including Frank Kozik, Marc Ecko, Urban Medium, Shag, Gary Baseman, and Jeff Soto. Each artist customized a to-scale prop replica of the actual Darth Vader helmet used in the Star Wars films. An additional 10 helmets are also on view at the Science Center. The result: a wild walk on the dark side.
Cameron Tiede, Darth Invaded, 2007. © 2009 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All rights reserved.
 Is it the end?
We’ve heard enough from the Wall Street-types. Now, the creative minds are speaking out about the impact of the current economic crisis. On view at The Andy Warhol Museum through May 3, The End: Analyzing Art in Troubling Times includes works by 32 contemporary artists who confront how our world has suddenly and dramatically changed—for both the ruling elite and the man on the street—as a result of the economy’s dramatic downturn. This timely exhibition is the first curated by Eric Shiner in his new role as The Warhol’s Milton Fine Curator of Art. And, not to be missed, Andy Warhol’s Death and Disasters, Skulls, Jackie, and Electric Chair series will be on view in the permanent collection galleries to explore Warhol’s own fixation and fascination with the theme of disaster.
Jonathan Meese, ALPHABABY WORLD-WARHOL-LOLLY, Metabolism-Babywarhol smells like sugar in Archiemeese's, babydictatorship-mouth (DR. FAUNA), , then Nanny, too ... TOYBABY-LOVE, 2008
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Spring 2009