Programs & Lectures

Select a month to read about programs, lectures, and events related to the Carnegie International.

March | Archived Events

MARCH

Tours
Tues.–Fri. at 1:30 p.m.
Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 and 3:00 p.m.
Meet in the Museum of Art lobby
Hour-long tours are free with exhibition admission.

Performances
Letter to Tacitus, 2004
Trisha Donnelly
Tues.–Fri., and select Saturdays at noon
Free with exhibition admission
Performed in several locations beginning in Heinz Galleries and following the numberical sequence of the exhibition.

Real Time Movie, 2004
Pawel Althamer
Sat., March 19 at 1:00 p.m.
Corner of Forbes Ave. and S. Craig St., free
Take part or simply observe this final live performance.

Programs
Curator's Dialogue: Francesco Bonami in conversation with Laura Hoptman
Fri., March 18 at 6:00 p.m.
Carnegie Lecture Hall
Exhibition galleries open until 9:00 p.m.
The Carnegie International, initiated in 1896 as an annual exhibition, is the longest running exhibition of contemporary art in North America. In the last decade, however, major surveys of contemporary art have appeared in all parts of the globe. Laura Hoptman, curator of the 54th Carnegie International, joins Francesco Bonami for this closing event. They will discuss what can be accomplished by bringing works of art together in this way and the impact of such exhibitions on local audiences and the art world at large. Bonami, Manilow Senior Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, has organized many international exhibitions including the 2003 Venice Biennale.

Artist's Lecture: Paul Chan
Thurs., Mar. 17, at 5:00 p.m.
McConomy Auditorium, Carnegie Mellon University, free
Art and political activism are at the center of Paul Chan's world; their ideologies often overlap, though the goals, limits, and consequences of each practice remains distinct. Chan discusses his activity in both realms, including the two video works he presents in the 2004-5 Carnegie International, his web site www.nationalphilistine.com, and his participation with politically motivated groups, such as Voices in the Wilderness.

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Archived Events

FEBRUARY

Tours
Tues.–Fri. at 1:30 p.m.
Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 and 3:00 p.m.
Meet in the Museum of Art lobby
Hour-long tours are free with exhibition admission.

Programs
Artist's Lecture: Jeremy Deller
Thurs., Feb. 10 at 5:00 p.m.
McConomy Auditorium, Carnegie Mellon University, free
Jeremy Deller, a 2004 Turner Prize nominee, achieved acclaim for his performance work The Battle of Orgreave (2001). A restaging of the 1984 clash between striking British miners and police, Deller orchestrated the work, on the anniversary of the event, as a collaboration among some of the original participants (with some assuming roles opposite of their original side in the conflict) and professional re-enactors. Deller's talk will focus on the Orgreave project and his interest in reexamining the presentation of history and historical fact. The program will include an excerpt from the docudrama The Battle of Orgreave, produced by Mike Figgis.

University Night and Artist's Lecture: Jeremy Deller
Sat., Feb. 12 at 3:00 p.m.
Carnegie Music Hall, free
University Night follows from 5:00–8:00 p.m., free for university students, faculty, and staff
Jeremy Deller's social consciousness and interest in daily experience has been at the root of a number of his provocative collaborative works. A member of the English rock band The Manic Street Preachers, Deller's music background led him to produce Acid Brass – a series of concerts and a recording by the Williams Fairey Band playing brass band interpretations of classic acid house dance tracks. Acid Brass brought together two distinct sounds that Deller considers "authentic forms of folk art rooted in specific communities," producing a completely new history. To kick off University Night, music students from Pittsburgh's Creative and Performing Arts High School will perform Acid Brass, and Deller will discuss the work, his new, site-specific works for the 2004–5 Carnegie International, and other collaborative projects. The evening continues with music, food, and free admission to the exhibition for college and university students.

Teen ART Attack with Jeremy Deller,sponsored by American Eagle Outfitters Foundation
Sun., Feb. 13 from 5:00–8:00 p.m.
Museum galleries
Free for all area high school students
Jeremy Deller and CAPA High School musicians present Jeremy Deller's collaborative performance artwork Acid Brass. The evening continues with a film festival of student-produced videos, more teen bands, artmaking, video scavenger hunts, food and more. For information email: teenartattack@carnegiemuseums.org

Artist's Lecture: Robert Breer
Sat., Feb. 19 at 2:00 p.m.
Carnegie Lecture Hall, free
Robert Breer's lecture celebrates his animation works in the 2004–5 Carnegie International and the opening of an exhibition of selected new work at Pittsburgh Filmmakers, on view February 18 through April 3. One of the originators of animation, Breer has been drawing his entire life and making films since 1952. By playfully mixing drawings, cartoons, photographs, and ephemera from everyday life to create impressionistic visual collages, Breer has taken the film technique of stop-action into a whole new realm of expression and narrative. Always an innovator, Breer will reflect on his 40 years of filmmaking and the thoughts that fill his head with animations yet to come.

Artist's Lecture: Peter Doig
Sat., Feb. 26 at 2:00 p.m.
Carnegie Lecture Hall, free
Painting as a technical tour de force and as a vehicle for metaphoric communication is alive and well in the hands of Peter Doig. His brilliant palette and elegant, painterly style transform simple, even banal landscapes into mythical explorations of the theme of man in nature. Focusing entirely on the recognizable world, Doig's paintings nevertheless facilitate the viewer's attainment of an altered perception of reality.

Lunch and Learn for Adults:
Defining Identity: Explorations of the Self
Thurs., Feb. 10 from 10:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m.
CMA Theater and International galleries
$25 museum members/$30 nonmembers, includes lunch
Call 412.622.3288 to register
Join Elisabeth Roark, professor of art history at Chatham College, for a slide-illustrated lecture discussing how contemporary artists go beyond traditional portraiture to explore the theme of personal identity. After lunch, a selective tour of the Carnegie International focuses on artists whose intimate, autobiographical works elucidate the broader human condition, including the whimsical ceramics of Kathy Butterly, the tiny self-reflective paintings based on Mexican retablos by Francis Alys, and more.

Adult Class:
The Carnegie International and Beyond
Tues., Feb. 22–March 29, (6 sessions)
1:30–3:00 p.m. or 6:00–7:30 p.m., CMA Theater
$78 museum members/$86 nonmembers
Call 412.622.3288 to register
The artwork in the 2004–5 Carnegie International considers questions addressed by religion, philosophy, and science using traditional artistic media as well as forms from popular culture. An independent curator, Vicky A. Clark brings complex topics into focus in this series of lectures on artworks in the exhibition that answer what it means to live in the world today.

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JANUARY

Tours
Tues.–Fri. at 1:30 p.m.
Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 and 3:00 p.m.
Meet in the Museum of Art lobby
Hour-long tours are free with exhibition admission.

Artist's Lecture: Kathy Butterly
Sat., Jan. 22 at 2:00 p.m.
Museum of Art Theater, free
Kathy Butterly's diminutive ceramic vessels are in fact personality giants bursting with tremendous sculptural and textural complexity, as well as interpretive potential. Abstracted and playful, her work achieves the level of imagined portraiture, both physical and psychological. Butterly will talk about her forming and glazing processes as well as the personal experiences that inspire her anthropomorphic vessels.

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DECEMBER

Tours
Tues.–Fri. at 1:30 p.m.
Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 and 3:00 p.m.
Meet in the Museum of Art lobby
Hour-long tours are free with exhibition admission.

Performances
Letter to Tacitus, 2004
Trisha Donnelly
Tues.–Fri., and select weekends at noon
Hall of Architecture or Grand Staircase
Free with exhibition admission

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NOVEMBER

Tours
Tues.–Fri. at 1:30 p.m.
Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 and 3:00 p.m.
Meet in the Museum of Art lobby
Hour-long tours are free with museum and exhibition admission.

Performances
Letter to Tacitus, 2004
Trisha Donnelly
Tues.–Fri., and select weekends at noon
Hall of Architecture or Grand Staircase
Free with exhibition admission

Programs
Poetry Performance:
John Giorno
Sun., Nov. 7 at 1:00 p.m.
Carnegie Lecture Hall, free
The work of Ugo Rondinone is represented in two works in the exhibition: Roundelay a six-channel video installation, and Everyone Gets Lighter, a carnivalesque sign derived from a recent poem by the storied poet and performer John Giorno. Includes a performance by Giorno, a key figure in the spoken-word movement.

Artist's Lecture: Trisha Donnelly
Thurs., Nov. 11 at 5:00 p.m.
McConomy Auditorium, Carnegie Mellon University, free
Donnelly's work is involved with the interrelationship of words, actions, thoughts, and images and their ability to invoke associations in the "mind's eye" of the viewer. Employing a variety of media–video, performance, and sound–she constructs subtle experiences intended to "slip into the back of people's minds" to evoke unique responses in our imaginations.

Performance Art TGIF
Fri., Nov. 12, 6:00–9:00 p.m.
Museum galleries and café
Free with museum and exhibition admission
Visit the exhibition and focus on performance art in this casual evening event. Drop in for a short performance by Trisha Donnelly then join an informal conversation with Donnelly, Elizabeth Thomas, assistant curator of contemporary art, and Pittsburgh-based performance artist Robert Karstadt. Enjoy music and a cash bar in the museum's café.

Curator's Lecture: Elizabeth A. T. Smith
Lee Bontecou in Perspective
Sat., Nov. 13 at 2:00 p.m.
Carnegie Lecture Hall, free
Lee Bontecou is one of three artists recognized with a retrospective within the International. Elizabeth Smith, chief curator at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, sees in Bontecou's work an extraordinary cohesiveness of vision over time and a sensibility that is simultaneously optimistic and despairing about the relationship between nature and culture, between human beings and the world they occupy. Smith examines the variety of physical forms, the range of materials, and the oscillation between abstraction and representation apparent in Bontecou's compelling sculpture, and discusses Bontecou's significance for a younger generation of artists in the International.

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OCTOBER

Tours
Tues.–Fri. at 1:30 p.m.
Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 and 3:00 p.m.
Meet in the Museum of Art lobby
Hour-long tours are free with exhibition admission.

Performances
Letter to Tacitus, 2004
Trisha Donnelly
Sat., Oct. 9 at 11:00 a.m., noon, 2:00 p.m.
Sun., Oct. 10 at noon
Sat., Oct. 16, 23, 30 at noon
Hall of Architecture
Free with exhibition admission

Real Time Movie, 2004
Pawel Althamer
Sat., Oct. 9, 16, 23, 30 at 1:00 p.m.
Corner of Forbes Ave. and S. Craig St., free

A Quarter from the project In Art Dreams Come True, 2004
Katarzyna Kozyra
Sat., Oct. 9 at 3:00 p.m.
Free with exhibition admission
Carnegie Music Hall

Programs
Curator's Lecture: Laura Hoptman
Fri., Oct. 15 at 6:00 p.m.
Carnegie Lecture Hall, free
Three years, 38 artists, 5 continents–organizing the Carnegie International is an enormous undertaking. Laura Hoptman, curator of the exhibition, tells the story of the 2004–5 Carnegie International as no one else can. Hear her reflections on the "impulses" that connect the artists she has chosen for the exhibition. Gain insights into how their work confronts "the ultimates"–unanswerable questions of faith, good and evil, and the nature of human existence–and thereby demonstrates a significant shift in contemporary art today.

Adult Class:
The Cartoonist Sketchbook
Sat., Oct. 16–Nov. 20, 9:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
$66 members/$80 nonmembers
Call 412.622.3288 to register.
Robert Crumb is almost as famous for his unbridled and inventive sketchbooks as for his published underground Comix. Professional cartoonist Don Simpson will help you critique your own cartoonist's sketchbook. Develop your ideas into a finished cartoon, illustration, or comic strip. Gallery visits allow you to look closely at Crumb's work in the exhibition.

High School Workshop:
Make Your Mark: Developing a Personal Style
Sat., Oct. 16–Nov. 20, 10:00 a.m.–1:00.p.m.
$95 members/$105 nonmembers
Call 412.622.3288 to register.
Artworks in the Carnegie International inspire experimentation with a broad range of artistic styles and influences from the anime-inspired mural by Japanese artist Chiho Aoshima to the multi-layered lines and planes in the paintings of Ethiopian-born artist Julie Mehretu. Look closely at the work of the artists in the exhibition to help you develop or refine specific skills and form a personal artistic voice.

Artist's Lecture: Julie Mehretu
Thurs., Oct. 21 at 5:00 p.m.
McConomy Auditorium, Carnegie Mellon University, free
Julie Mehretu's visually rich and energetic paintings synthesize a broad range of i nterests, experiences, and visual precedents from architectural drawings, maps, and floor plans to the grand scale and drama of traditional history painting and modernist abstraction. Her static diagrams of spaces and places, overlaid with a network of lines indicating social interaction and physical movement engage issues of power, history, and globalization.

Evening for Educators
Wed., Oct. 27, 4:15–8:30 p.m.
$20, Call 412.622.3288 to register
This event promises an energizing evening and provocative discussion, beginning with a keynote address by International artist Senga Nengudi and followed by guided exhibition tours, an overview of International school programs, and consultations with museum staff on tailoring exhibition tours to classroom goals. Teachers receive resource materials, earn four Act 48 hours, network with colleagues, and relax over a light dinner. Open to teachers at all grade levels and in all disciplines. Carnegie International programs for teachers are supported by The Grable Foundation.

Artist's Lecture: Senga Nengudi
Thurs., Oct. 28 at 5:00 p.m.
McConomy Auditorium, Carnegie Mellon University, free
For 30 years, Senga Nengudi's performances and performance-based sculptures and installations have explored aspects of the human body in relation to ritual, philosophy, and spirituality. An important figure in African-American avant-garde art of the 1960s and 1970s, Nengudi injected traditional African forms into the mix of Western modernism. Movement, improvisation, and ephemerality are central to her creative interests. Using abstract yet organic and anthropomorphic forms, simple and earthy materials, and intuitive, improvisational processes, Nengudi produces works rich in spiritual and metaphoric potency that resonate across cultures.

Artist's Dialogue and Film Preview:
Senga Nengudi and Linda Goode Bryant
Making the Private Public
Sat., Oct. 30 at 2:00 p.m.
Carnegie Lecture Hall, free
Join us for the premier of filmmaker Linda Goode Bryant's newest work, and a dialogue between Bryant and International artist Senga Nengudi. Bryant filmed Nengudi as she created her sculptural installation and sand painting on view in the International. Bryant's film reveals Nengudi's intuitive and improvisational creative process. Nengudi will talk about her work and the unique challenges and rewards of realizing one's artistic vision in the context of a museum installation.

Linda Goode Bryant is an award-winning producer, writer, and director of experimental short films, videos, and documentaries. She was the founder and director of Just Above Midtown, Inc. (JAM), a non-profit interdisciplinary artists space in Manhattan.

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