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Tuesday, November 09, 1999 By Tony Norman
The faces of people emerging from the stretchy membrane of Ernesto Neto's "Nude Plasmic" nylon sculpture Friday said it all: This year's Carnegie International is one sexy, hilarious, semiprovocative hoot.
By 8 p.m., the Carnegie Museum's galleries were filled with the chatter and laughter of sweet-smelling suburbanites dissecting visual puns with pristine earnestness: Chen Zhen's "Daily Incantations," a semicircle of chamber pots surrounding electronic detritus is "about" the impact of technology on rural Chinese tradition.
Sarah Sze's lovely "Second Means of Egress" is "about" what happens when a Rube Goldberg contraption boils up from the whimsical anarchy of, say, Joan Miró's dreams. Ann Hamilton's "welle," a wall shimmering with what appear to be drops of rain, is "about" the condensation of nature and its subordination to man-made cycles (or maybe not).
Because everything is open to interpretation, it's safe to speculate with impunity. There is brightness in the air, a giddiness rarely felt at past exhibitions mounted under the International's banner.
The didacticism of previous exhibitions hasn't been completely eliminated. Dull pieces are inevitable in any wide-ranging survey. But on balance, the 53rd Carnegie International has a lightness of tone that keeps sterile intellectualism at bay long enough for us common folks to enjoy ourselves.
Elitist art for the people? Who'd have thunk it! But even more refreshing than a Carnegie International that lived up to its advance hype was the sophistication of the marauding horde of museum members that turned out for the preview weekend.
Perhaps the cultural set was feeling cocky after electing Jim Roddey our first county executive earlier in the week. Having neatly divided the electoral spoils between a Republican CEO and a Democrat-controlled County Council, folks were feeling more than up to the task of judging artist Chris Ofili's elephant dung-laced paintings for themselves.
After the brouhaha at the Brooklyn Museum, the fact that his paintings (not featuring members of the Holy Family) could be exhibited in Pittsburgh without our own politicos jumping on the Giuliani bandwagon is the source of palpable pride in Oakland. Besides, it's only black pop culture icons who get the, um, clump treatment this time.
And the verdict on Ofili's paintings? The word I heard uttered most often last weekend was "sublime." They're beautiful, elephant dung and all, but sublime? Gorgeous, certainly funny, but sublime? I suppose I could live with that judgment, but I prefer "charismatic."
Sometimes it takes an art show to fill me with a semblance of civic pride. While driving to the Warhol for another reception that night, I marveled at how cosmopolitan Pittsburgh can be.
I kept thinking about the art at the Carnegie International and couldn't stop smiling. Even "Dogma" got a good review from a local clergyman a few days earlier and played to a sold-out audience at Regent Square Theater like it was just "another" world premiere in the city that night. Walking briskly past 30 kneeling protesters who hadn't seen the film seems a small price to pay for making up one's own mind.
Do I dare allow myself to believe the hype? Yes, because I've seen the smiling faces of folks emerging from Neto's nylon sculpture. Between last week's election and an art extravaganza, even an incurable cynic can be forgiven for believing that the times really are a-changin.'
Tony Norman's email: tnorman@post-gazette.com
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