Pittsburgh, PA…Carnegie Museum of Art announces a rich schedule for 2012 of exhibitions and programs dedicated to exploring local and global cultural exchange.

To that end, the museum creates exceptional exhibitions that travel to cities worldwide, while collecting and curating art by artists from around the world. By establishing this discourse, Carnegie Museum of Art anchors Pittsburgh’s place in the larger art world, while exposing the world to Pittsburgh.

Please note that all information included in this news release is effective as of February 7, 2012, and is subject to change. For current information, please contact the museum’s communications office at 412.688.8690 or gauglerj@carnegiemuseums.org. Images of the museum, its collection, and special exhibitions are available online. Contact the media relations office for access.

2012 Exhibitions

Picturing the City: Downtown Pittsburgh, 2007–2010
Through March 25, 2012
Gallery One

Experience Pittsburgh through the lenses of nine photographers who call the city their home. Inspired by the city’s century-old tradition of documentary photography, The Heinz Endowments asked photographers to record the current renaissance of Downtown, as told through its rivers, parks, buildings, and transportation systems, and brought to life through the celebrations and challenges, faces, and personalities of the people who live and work there. The artists of the Downtown Now Photography Project—Melissa Farlow, Jim Judkis, Richard Kelly, Kenneth Neely, Annie O’Neill, Mark Perrott, Martha Rial, Renee Rosensteel, and Dylan Vitone—focused on changes, large and small, in Pittsburgh today. This exhibition presents 80 works selected by curator of photography Linda Benedict-Jones from the final project archive of over 400.

This exhibition is made possible through the generous support of The Heinz Endowments.

Teenie Harris, Photographer: An American Story
Through April 7, 2012
Heinz Galleries

Carnegie Museum of Art presents a retrospective of the remarkable work and archive of African American photojournalist Charles “Teenie” Harris (1908–1998), which the New York Times has called “breathtaking in scope.” Teenie Harris, Photographer: An American Story features nearly 1,000 of Harris’s greatest images of life in Pittsburgh’s African American communities from the 1930s through the 1970s, presented as a large-scale multimedia presentation set to a newly commissioned jazz soundtrack. Audio commentary on the man and his work by the people who knew him and a web-based interactive allow visitors to explore his photographs in depth. The exhibition is accompanied by a related book, Teenie Harris, Photographer: Image, Memory, History (copublished with the University of Pittsburgh Press), and an enhanced CD, Hill District Beat: A Tribute to Teenie Harris (produced by MCG Jazz), with the soundtrack and images from the exhibition.

A portion of the retrospective will travel as a smaller-scale exhibition of prints to Chicago’s Harold Washington Library Center, February 4–June 4, 2012; the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in Alabama, August 7–October 28, 2012; and Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library, January 20–April 13, 2013.

Major support for this exhibition is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, PNC Financial Services Group, Inc., and Richard King Mellon Foundation. Support is also provided by The Heinz Endowments and the Virginia Kaufman Fund. Support for the exhibition soundtrack is provided by BNY Mellon. Other generous support is provided by The Pittsburgh Foundation, The Fellows of Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Beal Publication Fund.

Cathy Wilkes
Forum 67
Through February 26, 2012
Forum Gallery

Cathy Wilkes, one of the top ten sculpture exhibitions of 2011 (Art in America), is the first solo American museum exhibition to feature both paintings and sculptures by the renowned Scottish artist, who was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2008. The exhibition, organized by associate curator of contemporary art Dan Byers, brings together newly made sculptures, paintings, and personal belongings to work as a whole, interconnected experience. At the root of her display is Wilkes’s interest in an undefined ancient force; potentially traumatic moments of loss or buried memories; and moments when Wilkes says “a body becomes emptied.”

Maya Lin
February 12–May 13, 2012
The Heinz Architectural Center

Architect, artist, and dedicated environmentalist Maya Lin achieves a balance between nature, science, and art by observing natural phenomena and imaginatively re-presenting them as physical objects. The objects and drawings in Maya Lin—including a new piece, to be created for the exhibition, commemorating Pittsburgh’s rivers—reveal otherwise hidden landscapes, such as underwater seabeds, the surface of water, and negative spaces between mountains. Lin’s works evoke her own unique experience of the environment while considering the physicality of the world and our sympathetic existence with nature. Lin grew up in Athens, Ohio, and has been inspired since childhood by the topography, nature, and history of the Ohio Valley. Organized in Pittsburgh by curator of architecture Raymund Ryan, Maya Lin is an adaptation of the 2010 show of the same name at The Arts Club of Chicago, which was hailed by critics as a tour de force. In addition to the works on view in the Heinz Center galleries, What is Missing?, a film from Lin’s multimedia project of the same name, will be screened in the museum’s Scaife Lobby.

The programs of the Heinz Architectural Center are made possible by the generosity of the Drue Heinz Trust.

Henri Matisse: The Thousand and One Nights
April 7–July 15, 2012
Gallery One

Henri Matisse’s The Thousand and One Nights, a multi-panel, painted paper cut-out, is a visitor favorite, but due to its fragile nature, it is only on view for a limited period of time. It was created in 1950, when the artist was 81 and confined to his bed. Unable to sleep and kept alive by his drive to create, Matisse had much in common with Scheherazade, the legendary narrator of the Arabian Nights. Scheherazade saves her own life from a vengeful king by enthralling him with a story that she always interrupts at a moment of suspense just after dawn, ensuring her survival through 1,001 nights. Like her tales, The Thousand and One Nights is a work rich in fantastical imagery and symbolism created during many sleepless, difficult hours. The composition—with its fanciful magic lamps, dancing plant forms, hearts, and cut-out text—evokes the supernatural quality of the heroine’s storytelling and also the passage of time through the night. The complex shapes are skillfully interwoven to create a spontaneous, musical rhythm that captures the fascinating rapture of the story that inspired it.

Duncan Campbell
Forum 68
Opens April 28, 2012
Forum Gallery

This latest installment of the Forum series features filmic “portraits” by Irish artist Duncan Campbell. Based in the conviction that documentary is only a “peculiar form of fiction,” Campbell’s beautifully composed films bring together archival material and original footage, so-called authentic documents, and interpretive elements to present nuanced and imaginative depictions of their subjects. Each of the films unravels historical narrative by way of one fascinating protagonist—eminent German bureaucrat Hans Tietmeyer, a key player in Europe’s economic centralization; iconic Irish Republican civil rights activist and MP Bernadette Devlin; and legendary carmaker John DeLorean.

Support for Duncan Campbell was provided by The Juliet Lea Hillman Simonds Foundation.

Impressionism in a New Light: From Monet to Stieglitz
May 12–August 26, 2012
Heinz Galleries

Impressionism in a New Light: From Monet to Stieglitz presents a more robust picture of what Impressionism means in art, displaying paintings, drawings, prints, and pastels by major artists alongside works by many of the most famous Pictorialist photographers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While it may be true that Impressionist artists were liberated from precise representation by the development of photography, the artistic milieu of the period was far more complex, with photographers and painters engaging in a visual dialogue and finding similar optical expressions—manipulating light, composition, and subject matter on the canvas and in the darkroom.

Impressionism in a New Light presents both well-loved and little seen masterpieces from Carnegie Museum of Art’s distinguished collection, including works by Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Childe Hassam, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Signac, Alfred Sisley, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and John Twachtman. These pastels, sketches, and prints are intermixed with the works of Pictorialist photographers—Gertrude Käsebier, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Clarence White, and others—in a lively display of themes of interest to many artists of the time. Organized by Amanda Zehnder, associate curator of fine arts, and Linda Benedict-Jones, curator of photography, Impressionism in a New Light broadens the understanding of a movement we think we know so well.

The exhibition is accompanied by a full-color, illustrated handbook titled Impressionism and Post-Impressionism: Collection Highlights.

Support for this exhibition was provided by the William Talbott Hillman Foundation, Fort Pitt Capital Group, Baierl Acura, Macy’s, and Champagne Perrier-Jouët.

Architecture Explorations
The Heinz Architectural Center
June 16–August 19, 2012

Each summer, Carnegie Museum of Art presents architecture camps and workshops in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture. Open to children age six through high school, these lively programs investigate all kinds of structures—houses, bridges, office buildings, and museums, to name a few—and their changing use, design, and construction across history. Half of the Heinz Architectural Center’s galleries are transformed into design studios. The remainder of the Center’s gallery space hosts an exhibition of 30 to 40 objects from the department’s collection of more than 5,000 drawings, models, photographs, rare books, games, commemorative items, and other material made since the 1780s. Chosen for their relationship to the camps’ themes, the objects in Architecture Explorations also offer insights on fundamental architectural ideas and strategies.

Whistler and Rebellion in the Art World
August 4–December 9, 2012
Gallery One

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) was one of the most contentious, witty, and fiercely independent artists of his generation. He rebelled against the official art world and resisted allegiances with avant-garde movements such as Impressionism.  One of the most eminent advocates of the “art for art’s sake” philosophy of Aestheticism, he is considered by many to be among the best printmakers in art history. This exhibition presents Carnegie Museum of Art’s important and impressive collection of Whistler’s aesthetically radical prints and investigates the evolution of his printmaking career.

Cory Arcangel
Forum 70
Opens November 3, 2012
Forum Gallery

In recent years, New York–based artist Cory Arcangel has achieved national and international recognition for works that respond to the trends of popular culture, the internet, and technology. Infused with a blend of humor and technical wizardry, Arcangel’s pursuits exist as witty and informative interventions into contemporary culture at a time when it races toward obsolescence. The new installation in the Forum Gallery at Carnegie Museum of Art includes several key works from the last decade selected by 2013 Carnegie International curator Tina Kukielski.

White Cube, Green Maze: New Art Landscapes
September 15, 2012–January 20, 2013
The Heinz Architectural Center

White Cube, Green Maze presents six innovative institutions dedicated to the experience of culture and nature. In each distinct site, architecture, the reuse of found structures, environmentalism, and artistic experimentation combine to create museums that go beyond the traditional gallery space. Rather than any simple placement of art in nature, as with many 20th-century sculpture parks, these new art landscapes offer multiple experiences. The sites featured in the exhibition include the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle, WA; The Raketenstation, a former NATO missile base in Germany; the Benesse Art Site Naoshima located on an island in Japan’s Inland Sea; Inhotim, a landscape inspired by Brazil’s greatest landscape designer; Jardín Botánico, a repurposed botanical garden housing contemporary art in Culiacán, Mexico; and the Grand Traiano Art Complex in Italy. Organized by Raymund Ryan, curator of architecture, the exhibition will include a full-color, illustrated catalogue copublished with the University of California Press.

Scaife Galleries, 1820–1920 Re-Opening
September 14, 2012

While many of Carnegie Museum of Art’s most beloved works join Impressionism in a New Light, Scaife Galleries 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8 will transform to allow a fresh interpretation of the permanent collection. The reinstallation will highlight many of the museum’s strengths, including a dazzling new presentation of its Impressionism collection, its first-ever gallery dedicated to 19th-century sculpture, and another gallery showcasing popular French and American Realist painting.

Inventing the Modern World: Decorative Arts at the World’s Fairs, 1851–1939
October 13, 2012–February 24, 2013
Heinz Galleries

This groundbreaking exhibition explores the ingenuity and craftsmanship of decorative arts made for world’s fairs, from the London Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in 1851 to the New York World’s Fair in 1939. During this period, the fairs were the most important vehicles for debuting advancements in modern living, democratizing design as never before. Inventing the Modern World showcases approximately 200 examples of the most extraordinary works of furniture, metalwork, glass, ceramics, textiles, and jewelry produced by leading international artists and firms, including Lalique, Herman Miller, Sèvres, and Tiffany. These exceptional and singular objects—some never before seen in the United States—represent the pinnacle of scientific and artistic achievements of their time. To this end, Inventing the Modern World breaks new ground in its exploration of innovation in decorative arts.

The exhibition is co-organized by Carnegie Museum of Art and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, where it is on view April 14–August 19, 2012. The exhibition will travel to the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC. It is accompanied by a full-color, illustrated catalogue copublished with Skira Rizzoli. Curators of Inventing the Modern World are Jason T. Busch, curatorial chair for collections and the Alan G. and Jane A. Lehman Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at Carnegie Museum of Art, and Catherine L. Futter, the Helen Jane and R. Hugh “Pat” Uhlmann Curator of Decorative Arts at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

2013 Exhibitions

2013 Carnegie International
October 5, 2013–March 16, 2014

When Pittsburgh industrialist Andrew Carnegie founded Carnegie Institute in 1895, one of his bold ambitions was to create a museum of modern art. The series of contemporary art exhibitions he established the following year became the linchpin of that scheme. Through the exhibitions, Carnegie sought to educate and inspire audiences, promote international understanding of art, attract the art world to Pittsburgh, and above all, to build a collection through the purchase of the “Old Masters of tomorrow” who would be represented in the exhibitions. Today, curators Daniel Baumann, Dan Byers, and Tina Kukielski oversee the 56th Carnegie International, the oldest exhibition of international contemporary art in North America, and the second oldest in the world.

The Carnegie International, presented every three to four years, is Pittsburgh’s premier arts event and an internationally recognized venue for the best in contemporary art. The exhibition serves to present an American audience, especially a local one, with a broad and ambitious survey of the art of our time. With hundreds of works by artists from around the globe—including many commissioned specifically for the show—the 2013 Carnegie International will be a catalyst for new ways to present, experience, and think about art.

2012 Special Events and Activities

Picturing Me Youth Program Exhibition
March 17–25, 2012

Experience the artwork created by participants in Picturing Me, an after-school youth program using the compelling photography in Picturing the City: Downtown Pittsburgh, 2007–2010 and Teenie Harris, Photographer: An American Story as a catalyst to engage Pittsburgh kids in discovering our city’s past and present—inspiring them to envision their place in its future.

Picturing Me Celebration

Sunday, March 18, 2012
3:30–4:30 p.m.
Carnegie Music Hall; free; reception follows

Hear from Pulitzer Prize–winning photographer Martha Rial, whose images of Pittsburgh are featured in Picturing the City: Downtown Pittsburgh, 2007–2010. Afterward, join a celebration of the artistic achievements of kids from neighborhoods across Pittsburgh who participated in the Picturing Me after-school program.

Art in Bloom
April 12–15, 2012

Spring truly blossoms with the return of Art in Bloom, a four-day celebration featuring favorite works of art, fresh flowers, and an array of festivities. Regional garden clubs, local organizations, and florists will create stunning floral displays in a spectrum of styles to fill the galleries with the season’s most vibrant colors and loveliest fragrances. Don’t miss this opportunity to see the art collection complemented in an entirely new way! Art in Bloom is presented by the Women’s Committee of Carnegie Museum of Art. For more information, please call 412.622.3325 or email stanishl@carnegiemuseums.org.

The Art Connection Annual Student Exhibition
April 19–May 3, 2012

Celebratory Event: Sunday, April 22, 2012
3–5 p.m.; Hall of Sculpture
RSVP to TAC@carnegiemuseums.org or call 412.622.3293.

For more than 80 years, Saturday art classes at Carnegie Museum of Art have nurtured the talents of aspiring young artists. The Art Connection encourages students in fifth through ninth grades to see and interpret the visual world with imagination and confidence as they develop their art-making skills. This exhibition of paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, and mixed media showcases the work of students inspired by the unique creative environment of the museum.

Opening Event: The Art and Music of Avant-Garde Paris
Presented with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

Saturday, May 12
$10 for Carnegie Museum and PSO members; $20 for nonmembers
Free for students with valid I.D.
General seating. Reservations are required. Call 412.622.3288.

“Works of art make rules but rules do not make works of art.” This comment by renowned Impressionist composer Claude Debussy sets the stage for an unparalleled evening of art, music, and conversation. Celebrate the opening of Carnegie Museum of Art’s exhibition Impressionism in a New Light: From Monet to Stieglitz and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Paris Festival at an evening highlighting the experimental and radical aspects of Impressionism and its surrounding culture.

The symphony’s music director Manfred Honeck and concertmaster Noah Bendix-Balgley will join museum curators Amanda Zehnder and Linda Benedict-Jones, along with moderator Mary Davis, professor of musicology at Case Western Reserve University, to explore the parallels of Impressionist art and music during this era of rebellion and innovation. The event culminates with Debussy’s Danse sacrée et danse profane (Dance for Harp and Strings) performed by PSO musicians Shanshan Yao, violin; Meng Wang, viola; David Premo, cello; and Gretchen Van Hoesen, harp.

La Belle Époque Cabaret                                                
An Evening in the Bohemian Style

Friday, July 27, 2012
7:30–10:00 p.m.
Carnegie Music Hall Foyer
$20 members; $25 nonmembers, includes one absinthe drink provided by Pernod Ricard. Seating is limited. Preregistration is required. Call 412.622.3288

Join us for an evening evoking the environment of a bawdy, Parisian cabaret from La Belle Époque. Members of the Pittsburgh Song Collaborative will perform period French songs (accompanied by English subtitles or translated into English) originally sung by Yvette Guilbert, Aristide Bruant, and others. The emcee, played by Rob Frankenberry, will be your guide through musical selections, comedic monologues, and satirical skits. Projected images of artwork will help to emphasize the role that café culture played for Impressionist artists.

Inventing the Modern World: Decorative Arts at the World’s Fairs, 1851–1939
Gala Opening

A gala opening at Carnegie Museum of Art will take place on Friday, October 12, 2012.

Symposium

Carnegie Museum of Art will host a symposium in conjunction with the opening of Inventing the Modern World on Saturday, October 13, 2012. Featuring talks by exhibition catalogue authors and a panel discussion, the program will also provide opportunities for visitors to talk with the curators and authors in the galleries.

The exhibitions and dates listed above are subject to change.

Photos are available on Carnegie Museum of Art’s media photo website. Contact the communications office at 412.688.8690 or gauglerj@carnegiemuseums.org for the access code.

NOTE: INFORMATION RE: ACCESS TO PHOTOS AND OTHER MATERIALS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE DEPENDING ON THE CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF ART ONLINE MEDIA ROOM

Permanent Collection

The museum’s significant collection of art since 1945 features paintings, sculptures, video, and installations, many of them acquired from Carnegie International exhibitions. Other collections of note include works of American art from the late 19th century, French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, and European and American decorative arts from the late 17th century to the present. The Heinz Architectural Center, opened as part of the museum in 1993, is dedicated to enhancing understanding of the physical environment through its exhibitions, collections, and public programs. The Hall of Architecture contains the largest collection of plaster casts of architectural masterpieces in America and one of the three largest in the world. The recently reopened Ailsa Mellon Bruce Galleries feature an enhanced installation of decorative arts, design, and craft, highlighting important collections of Pennsylvania furniture, seating furniture, and contemporary objects made from glass and aluminum.

General Information

412.622.3131

Website

www.cmoa.org
www.facebook.com/CarnegieMuseumofArt
www.twitter.com/cmoa

Hours

Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
Thursday, 10 a.m.–8 p.m.
Sunday, noon–5 p.m.

(Open Mondays in the summer between the 4th of July and Labor Day; Martin Luther King, Jr. Day; Presidents’ Day; and Monday between Christmas Day and New Years Day)

Admission

Adults: $17.95
Seniors (65+): $14.95
Students with ID/Children ages 3–18: $11.95
Members and children under 3: Free
Admission includes Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Admission rates subject to change.

Group Tours

412.622.3289
Special rates available for groups of 10 or more.

Carnegie Café

Tuesday–Saturday, 10:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m.
Sunday, closed

Fossil Fuels Café

Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.
Sunday, noon–4 p.m.

Museum Stores

Tuesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
Thursday, 10 a.m.–8 p.m.
Sunday, noon–5 p.m.

Location and Parking

Carnegie Museum of Art, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Carnegie Library, and Carnegie Music Hall are located in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh at 4400 Forbes Avenue, across from the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning. Parking is available in the garage directly behind the building at the corner of Forbes Avenue and South Craig Street.

Support

General operating support for Carnegie Museum of Art is provided by The Heinz Endowments and Allegheny Regional Asset District. Carnegie Museum of Art receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The programs of the Heinz Architectural Center are made possible by the generosity of the Drue Heinz Trust.

Carnegie Museum of Art

Located at 4400 Forbes Avenue in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Museum of Art was founded by industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in 1895. One of the four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, it is nationally and internationally recognized for its distinguished collection of American and European works from the 16th century to the present. The Heinz Architectural Center, part of Carnegie Museum of Art, is dedicated to enhancing understanding of the physical environment through its exhibitions, collections, and public programs. For more information about Carnegie Museum of Art, call 412.622.3131 or visit our web site at www.cmoa.org.

Contact:

Jonathan Gaugler
412.688.8690
gauglerj@carnegiemuseums.org