It would seem that, in some ways, the Carnegie International markets itself. It is, after all, the only regular exhibition of contemporary artists' work from all over the world in North America. And it has been around for more than a century.

But this year's show that starts May 3, the 55th since Andrew Carnegie held the first one in 1896, has a few more extras that led Carnegie Museum of Art to work a little harder to attract audiences. It's longer than past shows, running nearly nine months compared to about six months normally; and it comes as the region is about to launch a big birthday party for the city's 250th anniversary.

To build and keep the buzz going through the summer months and deep into winter, the Carnegie decided on four marketing firsts -- giving the contemporary art show a title; advertising it in The New York Times; buying substantial Internet ads and launching an interactive Web site where visitors can learn about the artists and comment on their work at kiosks in the museum.

"Life on Mars" -- the title of this year's exhibition that showcases 40 artists -- poses three questions: Are we alone in the universe? Do aliens exist? Or are we, ourselves, the strangers in our own worlds?

"It tees it up in a way for people who might not be familiar with the International," said Kitty Julian, marketing director for the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History. "You wonder, what is that? It's a way of opening a dialogue with our audiences."

Attracting different audiences is essential because "nine months is a long time to hold people's attention," Julian said. In spring and summer, the exhibition hopes to draw cultural tourists from Los Angeles; New York; Baltimore; Chicago; Cleveland; Columbus, Ohio; Cincinnati; and Washington, D.C. In August and September, the focus will be college students and professors who are back in school here and in nearby states. In November and December, the target will be friends and family visiting Pittsburgh during Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Some board members did question why the second oldest survey of contemporary art -- the first, begun in 1895, is the Venice Biennale -- needed a title.

"The board's reaction to the title was, 'Why now? We've never done that before,' " said Richard Armstrong, the Carnegie Museum of Art's H.J. Heinz II curator..

"It's tremendously useful that we have a title, as a provocation. You understand why the hell you're there," Armstrong said, adding that the show is "an artistic reaction to an overly elaborate world. The show really has its own personality. What does it mean to be affiliated or alienated in today's world? How can artists make an impact on that condition by exploiting it, examining it, explicating it or even ignoring it?"

To start building momentum, the Carnegie advertised for the first time in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, using its Easter weekend edition, which focused on the art world, Julian said. "The New York Times attracts highly educated readers," she noted, adding that, "If we see upswings in out-of-market visitations, we'll know the ad paid off."

She was mum about its cost, saying only that The New York Times was "quite generous in their discounts for museums. Nobody pays retail in advertising." Typically, that ad, which occupied about a third of the page, "sells for $50,000," she said.

Starting Sunday through May 20, "Life on Mars" also is being promoted in links on The New York Times Web site and, from May 3 through May 31, on the National Public Radio Web site. The home page on the popular ArtForum Web site also will feature the Carnegie from May 1 to May 31. There also will be e-mails and blogs notifying arts and culture professionals of the show.

The interactive Web site cmoa.org/ci08lifeonmars promises to have the greatest reach of the Carnegie's marketing efforts. Given a soft launch on April 7, the Web site will not post art from the actual exhibition until the formal May 3 opening. Once that happens, site visitors can use Gigapan, a robotic system developed at Carnegie Mellon University, to pan across and zoom in on a picture, sculpture or installation.

It's not the first time the Carnegie International show has had its own Web site -- that was in 1999 -- "but this is far more interactive and has links to other Web sites. People can share their thoughts and photos," Julian said, adding that the site will feature video clips from interviews with artists, Web pages for each artist and a blog by the curator, Douglas Fogle.

"Once the show opens, the art will become the protagonist of the site," said Will Real, the museum's director of technology initiatives. Users can skip the docent-led tour, if they wish, or pop open their cell phone, dial a number and code and begin an audio tour.

All of this means "there's no longer one way to look at this show," he said. "It feels very risky for us as an institution. It's a more democratic way of interacting with our constituents."

Other museums, he added, have found that once an exhibition Web site is launched, "The problem is getting people to step up and participate."

The Web site also will include a section for teenage commentary, which the museum hopes will help it reach a younger audience. A $150,000 grant from the local Fine Foundation is being used to set up the program that will give 30 teenagers behind-the-scenes passes to the exhibition so they can control a part of the exhibition's Web site.

"It shakes up the hierarchy," Julian said. "No matter who you are, no matter where you're sitting, no matter how much you know about art and culture, you can state your opinion about the show."

Armstrong, the museum's director, sees the show as the "cultural cornerstone" of Pittsburgh's 250th anniversary celebration.

"It's a word-of-mouth city. If your Aunt Beulah says, it's worth seeing, it may take you two months to get over there," Armstrong said, adding that a longer show is "a better way to amortize the investment. It will be up for more than 1,200 hours. That's 60 symphonies or 50 plays."

Curating and exhibiting the 55th Carnegie International cost $4.3 million, he said, up $1.3 million from the 54th International, which cost $3 million and ran from October 2004 through March 2005.

Two major gifts more than doubled the endowment that finances the exhibition: The local Fine Foundation, established last fall by Fox Chapel hotel executive Milton Fine, gave $5 million, while Jill Kraus, a CMU trustee, and her husband, hedge fund manager Peter Kraus, donated $1.5 million. The two gifts doubled the exhibition's endowment to $12.5 million.

In addition, 68 Friends of the 2008 Carnegie International, a group of affluent contemporary art collectors, each gave $10,000, raising $680,000. While 22 of the friends live here, the other 44 donors are as far-flung as Mexico, Basel, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Wrapped inside the Fine Foundation's $5 million gift is $10,000 for the Fine Prize, which will be awarded to an emerging artist. The $10,000 Carnegie Prize honors a lifetime of work by an artist.

How relevant is a contemporary art show? Armstrong sees it as a forum "where people who have close connections to the avant-garde can self-reflect on the vocabulary of the moment. It's an effort at collective consciousness."

As an example, he noted that when some people think of the 1920s, they think of flappers, the stock market's rise and fall, laissez-faire economics and Prohibition. But that decade's culture, Armstrong noted, featured experimental music by Francis Poulenc and Erik Satie, daring modernist architects such as Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, and experimental literature by e.e. cummings.

"That's what defined that era," Armstrong said. "It's very important for the cultural sector to be self-aware and define itself. Pop culture does it. The socio-political and economic sectors do it. Do you want to be recalled as the era of Paris Hilton or the era of one of the artists in the exhibition? We have the financial means, the space, the judgment and we really have the moral obligation to do this."