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Immersed in Art The Carnegie International's works force viewers to get involved in the artists' experiences Saturday, November 06, 1999 By Mary Thomas, Post-Gazette Art Critic
The 1999 Carnegie International, which opens today at the Carnegie Museum of Art, is a vivid, thoughtful selection of diverse and unique contemporary expression that maintains the vitality of the 103-year-old exhibition, instituted by Pittsburgh industrialist and museum founder Andrew Carnegie.
It is the most prestigious survey of global contemporary art in North America and the second oldest (after the Venice Biennale) worldwide. This year, 41 artists represent 22 countries, most of which are located within the industrialized West, but with input from Africa, Asia and South America.
What unifies this large exhibition is the vision of curator Madeleine Grynsztejn, who, while including a wide range of works that reflect late 20th-century formal eclecticism, argues a thematic common ground that not only gives definition to the show but also implies a sea change in the direction of art as the new millennium approaches.
Parallel to what she calls a new internationalism -- the product of more frequent and more accelerated physical and virtual cosmopolitan experiences -- she sees a common concern among the artists with what is real and how to access that.
A cursory walk-through during a less-than-two-hour press preview underscored the fact that contemporary art frequently requires an investment of time to allow for a good reading. Added to that are a large number of film and video works that, by nature, require a gallery presence determined by their lengths to fully appreciate them. For example, the two films by Ann-Sofi Siden and Matthew Barney, each of which will be shown daily in the Museum of Art Theater, run 28 minutes and an hour and a half, respectively.
That said, it's obvious that the visitor should allow a good portion of time to fully experience the exhibition, but it doesn't have to all come at one visit. A short lunch-time stop can be rewarding too.
On Nov. 28, after viewing the films, videos and Janet Cardiff's audio walk through the Carnegie Library, I'll address the exhibition in more depth. For now, touching on some of the highlights can give an idea of what to expect.
Entering the museum from Forbes Avenue, the visitor is greeted by the luminous yellows and oranges of New Yorker Alex Katz's "Autumn," an intense, large painting that surrounds the viewer by virtue of its scale. While it at first appears to be only coincidentally appropriate to the time of year, it is the beginning of a philosophical gaming that will be played out throughout the exhibition, subconsciously or overtly nudging the visitor into a participatory awareness of his surroundings.
For example, the visitor, who has just come in from a "real" street experience of autumn is invited, here, to perceive a representational one. Further, the two-dimensional image simultaneously reveals itself to be a cluster of trees and a largely abstract work that in actuality only slightly resembles the real thing.
Glancing right, to the Sculpture Court, one's eye is caught by the geyser of steam pouring from Olafur Eliasson's contemplative site-specific installation, "Your natural denudation inverted," a meticulously constructed rectangular pond that surrounds four of the courtyard trees. The title may apply to the reflection of the leaf-dropping trees or to something psychological within the viewer.
Placed as it is, abutting the museum's main corridor, it also reflects the heavy traffic there and on the wide stairway to the second floor. Visitors, staff, the colored panels of the Sol LeWitt wall, installation by co-exhibitor Suchan Kinoshita and the far buildings of Carnegie Mellon University all mingle in its illusory depth. The geyser, a natural part of the landscape of Eliasson's ancestral Iceland, is an artificial by-product of the museum's heating system.
Outside, the sound of the gushing steam becomes a part of the work. That, and the glossy stillness of the surface was counterpoint, in one moment, to the crystalline veils cascading noisily in the court's waterfall. In the next, the balance shifted as the wind caused ripples to flutter across the pool. This is a predicted part of the piece, which will always be in flux, and more dramatically so when temperatures plunge.
At the left of the main entry, light and water are also important in California artist Diana Thater's potent video work in the museum cafe. Sunlight pouring through red, green and blue gels -- the base colors of video imagery -- that coat the windows saturate the room with color and turn movement into shadow. A feeling of being underwater is heightened by two large projections of swimming dolphins on an adjoining wall. Subtext to all of her work is an environmental commentary, especially concerning the effect of man's presence on other species. Thater plunges the viewer beneath the surface again in a related but separate work in Botany Hall, in the Museum of Natural History. The point of view is changed but not the formal and emotional eloquence of her statements.
Suchan Kinoshita's plywood constructions, which begin inside the back entry and continue along the stairs to the second floor, aren't physically eloquent, but that's not her intent. She's proffering the experiential moment, and the private, carpeted, closet-sized spaces are indeed enticing. They may be visited in series, or individually, briefly or -- one presumes -- more leisurely. I have visions of patrons seeking them out as comfy spots in which to sit -- they are furnished -- and read a novel. Thursday she was still affixing an enigmatic array of objects to their roofs; further comment on these to come.
One may take this quiet path upstairs or Natural History's grand staircase, where South African Kendell Geers has constructed a powerful environment of oppression, terror and suffering. Film clips that include a hooded figure and a man fighting for his life as he's being held under water, combined with a deafening audio overlay, are unnerving. The work gains power through its juxtaposition with the 19th-century murals of John White Alexander. The technological equipment itself becomes part of the ordeal, thickly loaded onto scaffolding that envelops the visitor and compresses him into a tight space with these animated images of horror.
An opulence of work spreads out in two directions on the second floor, and both brim with artwork that is whimsical or serious, blatant or nuanced, but I predict that the popular vote will go to the Heinz Galleries.
After all, that's where Ernesto Neto's "Nude Plasmic," a huge enclosed space defined by a nylon-like stretched fabric that the visitor is invited to step into (no shoes, please), is located. Doing so is like stepping into a body or becoming surrounded by a mist with physicality. Its floor is suspended slightly above the gallery floor and offers resistance as one tries to move through it. Sensual pink orifices on its surface invite probing and reaffirm its association with the flesh. The viewer becomes the viewed as he changes the configuration and content of the piece. It's not only fun, but its sweeping curves and pendulous counterbalances, are pleasing to look at.
In the next gallery, Gabriel Orozco also invites interaction with his "Ping Pond Table," which encompass references as broad as the internationalism of the sport to Monet's impressionistic works, one of which hangs in the Carnegie permanent collection galleries.
This is only a sampling, but what does it all mean?
A variety of things, or course, but among them is that art at the beginning of the new millennium will continue to be diverse, quirky, highly individualistic and mold-breaking. For that reason, it's best to leave all preconceived notions at the door and to be open to what each artist is trying to express.
While it's true that contemporary art can be difficult for the casual observer to access, there are several pieces in the exhibition, like Neto's, that have a tactile immediacy that makes a direct connect with the visitor.
The works in the exhibition are speaking, and if you stay with them long enough you can hear them. For as large as this exhibition and the gallery spaces are, there is an intimacy about it. What lingers longest after having walked through it is the feeling of having had an intense conversation.
The International runs through March 26. The museum is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesdays through Saturdays; 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays. Admission is adults, $6; senior citizens, $5; students and children, $4; members free. For a schedule of related events or other information, 412-622-3131.
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