On Saturday, January 15, Carnegie Museum of Art and The Andy Warhol Museum kicked off an exciting year of collaborative performance programming when Dean and Britta played at the Carnegie Lecture Hall to a crowd of 400. It was the first in a series of performances that will be co-presented throughout 2011 by Carnegie Museum of Art and The Warhol at Carnegie Lecture Hall and the Carnegie Music Hall—both located at the 4400 Forbes Avenue campus housing Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History. The collaboration is intended to present contemporary performances while sharing resources and ideas.

Upcoming performances include Third Coast Percussion on January 29 at Carnegie Lecture Hall, An Evening with Ragnar Kjartansson and Friends on March 24 at Carnegie Music Hall, and Tony Allen’s Afrobeat Orchestra on April 17 at Carnegie Music Hall.

During the past 10 years, The Andy Warhol Museum has been developing its performance programming and has hosted various artists and performers through two primary series: the Sound Series (live music series) and the multi-disciplinary performance series Off the Wall.

Carnegie Museum of Art’s grand and unique spaces have hosted a range of important performances for many years, from artist James Lee Byars’ genre-defining early “happenings” in 1964 and 1965, to the recent gallery performances by Attack Theatre and Opera Theater of Pittsburgh. The partnership with The Warhol allows Carnegie Museum of Art to present live art, both in conjunction with exhibitions and as independent events.

According to Ben Harrison, curator of performing arts at The Warhol, “This new partnership with CMA is a perfect next step in the development of our performance program since it originated organically through conversations with Dan Byers, associate contemporary art curator, and Lucy Stewart, assistant curator of education, around parallels with our missions as contemporary art museums. Also, there are various types of venues and spaces with which to experiment in close proximity to our expanding university audience.”

“As performance and event-based programming becomes more important to museums, it seemed natural for us to formalize the informal conversations between programmers at both museums, and position The Warhol and the Museum of Art to support live art across its many manifestations. CMA’s upcoming exhibition of video—and performance—by Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson in March perfectly illustrates the possibilities of this collaboration,” said Byers.

For tickets and more information visit www.warhol.org or call 412.237.8300.  

AWM/CMA Collaborative Presentations (to date):

January 29—Third Coast Percussion at Carnegie Lecture Hall
Co-presented by University of Pittsburgh’s Music on The Edge Series

March 24—An Evening with Ragnar Kjartansson and Friends at Carnegie Music Hall

April 17—Tony Allen’s Afrobeat Orchestra at Carnegie Music Hall
Co-presented by Afrika Yetu