Museum of Art director, Lynn Zelevansky, charts new course

2012-03-29 05:34:30
  • Red Eyelashes" is one of two works by Paul Thek in the Carnegie Museum of Art collection. Director Lynn Zelevansky is the co-curator of a retrospective exhibition about the late artist that opens next month in the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
    Red Eyelashes" is one of two works by Paul Thek in the Carnegie Museum of Art collection. Director Lynn Zelevansky is the co-curator of a retrospective exhibition about the late artist that opens next month in the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
  • Lynn Zelevansky -- "We have to look to the future, make a case for museums and what museums do in a 21st-century context."
    Lynn Zelevansky -- "We have to look to the future, make a case for museums and what museums do in a 21st-century context."

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By Mary Thomas / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"I've been in Pittsburgh for a year and have been trying to understand how people see their city and their museum," Carnegie Museum of Art director Lynn Zelevansky said last week.

Now she thinks it's time to let you know a little more about her. On. Sept. 30 she'll talk "frankly and personally" about her experiences as curator, museum visitor, parent and artists' friend. She'll also address her long-term goals for the museum and speculate upon the future of art.

The talk is the first of three in a new free public series, "What Are Museums For?," designed to foster an open relationship between the museum and its visitors. On Oct. 28, museum staff members will provide an insider's look at putting on an exhibition, and Nov. 4, noted New York artist and Pittsburgh native Duane Michals will conclude the series with a discussion of artist-museum dynamics.

In small and subtle ways, Ms. Zelevansky already has been putting her imprint on the museum. Taken together, they reveal an insistence on quality, a desire to reach a wider audience, and an ongoing re-evaluation of the collection and of relationships with outside groups.

One surprise is the absence of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh annual show from the museum's 2011 calendar. The current annual continues through Sunday at the museum, where it has been held since 1911 with the exception of some Carnegie International years and when the Scaife Galleries were being restored.

The decision had "a lot to do with the ambitions that we have for our exhibition schedule," Ms. Zelevansky said. "It's not that we're not interested in artists from Pittsburgh."

"[The AAP] is a venerable institution and I have a lot of respect for the people who are a part of it. We're not cutting them out. We're just changing the way that we are showing them."

Post-Gazette art critic Mary Thomas: mthomas@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1925.
First Published September 15, 2010 12:00 am
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