The show also includes some of Campbell’s print works, and a few days ago I took some photos of the installation, including this one of art handler Rob displaying his solidarity in front of one of Campbell’s protest-inspired screenprints:

As with Campbell’s films, where things aren’t always as they appear, this photo has its own complexities. It was already interesting to see Rob and several other art handlers busily hanging the protest-inspired screenprints demanding WORK NOW. But upon closer inspection, Rob’s shirt complicates the scene with an admission of his relatively meagre needs:

Duncan Campbell will be giving a lecture about his work tonight (Friday April 27) before the opening reception for the exhibition. It’s free and open to the public.

Duncan Campbell runs April 28–July 8, 2012 in the Forum Gallery.

Support for Duncan Campbell was provided by The Fellows of Carnegie Museum of Art, Virginia Kaufman Fund, and the Juliet Lea Hillman Simonds Foundation. 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.

General support for the museum’s exhibition program 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.

Tatiana Bilbao (architect), Jardín Botánico de Culiacán, interior view of Educational Building with lofted storage and learning spaces (Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico)

This Monday (April 23) architect Tatiana Bilbao comes to Pittsburgh to give a lecture titled “How We Do Architecture.” Bilbao (b. 1972) is one of the leading architects working in Mexico today. Her projects include Observatory House, a collaboration with artist Gabriel Orozco, on the Pacific Coast of Mexico; the Ruta Peregrino, a series of interventions along an Easter Week pilgrimage route in Jalisco State; and a pavilion at the riverside park planned by artist Ai Weiwei in Jinhua, China. Bilbao’s work is often designed in alliance with artists yet is also concerned with essential qualities of architecture: light, shade, structure, form, the unfolding of space. She has for several years been involved with the Jardín Botánico de Culiacán, one of six new sites for contemporary art featured in the exhibition White Cube, Green Maze: New Art Landscapes which opens at the Heinz Architectural Center this September.

The lecture begins at 6 p.m. in the Carnegie Library Lecture Hall. The lecture is part of Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture’s Spring 2012 Lecture Series, cosponsored by The Heinz Architectural Center at Carnegie Museum of Art. Learn more.

Despite the surprise smattering of hail and snow seen across Pittsburgh yesterday, today marks the official start of spring here at the museum with the opening of the fourth annual Art in Bloom, a four-day celebration featuring traditional and contemporary flower arrangements paired with paintings, sculpture, furniture, and decorative art objects from CMA’s collection (photos below).

Art in Bloom is open today and will be on view until this Sunday, April 15. Don’t miss these related events:

Preview Gala—“Tiptoe Through the Tulips” (Thurs. April 12)

Lecture & Luncheon with Renowned Florist Els Teunissen—“Flowers in Our Lives” (Fri. April 13)

Special thanks to the Women’s Committee for all of their hard work in support of this annual event. And thanks to the garden clubs, florists, and other organizations that have brought the best part of spring into our galleries:

Bidwell Training Center Horticulture Department
Carnegie Museum of Art Docents
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Charleroi Garden Club
Fox Chapel Garden Club
Garden Club of Allegheny County
Garden Club of Forest Hills
Garden Club of McKeesport
The Gentlemen Fans of Window Box Garden Club
Grapevine Garden Club
Hillcrest Garden Club
Ichiyo School Ikebana meeting at Phipps Garden Center, Pittsburgh
Leetsdale Garden Club
Nancy Lewis & MeMe Betters
Ohara School of Ikebana, Pittsburgh Chapter
Perennial Garden Club
Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens
Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium
Pucketos Garden Club
Seeders and Weeders Garden Club
Sogetsu School of Ikebana
Trowel and Error Garden Club
Tusca Ridge Garden Club
Valley Garden Club
The Village Garden Club of Sewickley
Window Box Garden Club
Women’s Committee, Carnegie Museum of Art

Why so many photos? Well, there’s a lot to see. Of course, to smell the flowers, you’ll just have to stop by.

The organizer for the exhibition, curator of fine arts Louise Lippincott, adds: 

“If you look closely at the collage, you can see the pencil marks on the paper defining the placement of each cut out. You can read the watermark in the paper (Arches). You can see tack holes in the corners of the large shapes, made when Matisse pinned them to the walls of his studio. You can see how small scraps of paper were assembled to make shapes and letters. You can see the overlap of one cut-out form upon another. In other words, you can see exactly how it was made. These details are too subtle to show up in a reproduction—it’s only possible to see them in the gallery.”

Due to the light-sensitive nature of this delicate giant, Henri Matisse: The Thousand and One Nights will be only on view for a limited time (closing July 15) to help reduce damage from ultraviolet light and prolong the life of this important work. The exhibition includes a drawing and a wood block print by Matisse, as well as photographs showing his studio at the time he created The Thousand and One Nights with the help of his assistants.

To celebrate the completion of our after-school photography program, nearly 200 program participants, family members, and friends recently visited the Picturing Me Youth Exhibition in the Forum Gallery to see the work of these amazing young photographers firsthand. Attendees also visited Carnegie Music Hall to hear from J.G. Boccella, Picturing Me program manager; Lynn Zelevansky, The Henry J. Heinz II Director of Carnegie Museum of Art; and Pulitzer Prize–winning photographer Martha Rial.

Martha shared some of her photography from her visits to Africa, but she added that you don’t have to travel far to create important photographs, encouraging the young artists to keep capturing the people, places, and events in their daily lives. To see more of Martha’s documentary, editorial, travel, and portrait photography, visit her website.

The Picturing Me Youth Exhibition closes this Sunday, April 1—come see the work up close!

Here are some more photos from the celebration, courtesy of Josh Franzos.

To  learn more about Picturing Me, visit CARNEGIE Magazine’s recent article, or visit the program website to see some of the photography and other visual work created by local students.

Special thanks to The Heinz Endowments and the Scaife Family Foundation Fund for Scholarships for their generous support of the Picturing Me program.

Part of the Family

Okay, I give up. I’m a poet, playwright, and oral historian who’s protected her personal privacy like a museum guard protects the art on kindergarten-field-trip day. I’ve managed to somehow keep my public life separate from my private life. Yeah, I’m finally on Facebook—but I only talk about stuff related to writing and performance. And when I first created an account, I used an alias so I could participate while still hiding out! The idea of people posting photos of me or my family on the internet freaked me out completely.

Time to get over that! When Cave Canem contacted me to participate in a poetry reading inspired by Teenie Harris, Photographer: An American Story, they didn’t know what they were asking of me, but I knew I had nowhere to hide. In that spirit, through Teenie’s lens, let me introduce you to…

My dad, Eugene Stevens (pictured on the left, from August 1945, Exhibition No. 301)…

…my uncle, Tim Stevens (pictured on the right, from 1972, Exhibition No. 967)…

…and my aunt, Marlene Stevens McEnheimer (pictured in the doorway, from December 4, 1960, Exhibition No. 816).

The photo above shows the opening of Jones Funeral Home, where my grandmother, aka “Big George,” used to take us to visit the deceased, regardless of whether she knew them or not. This subject was so mesmerizing to me that it inspired me to interview about thirty people who knew her so I could find out more. The result, my oral history manuscript, Big George’s Wylie Avenue, sheds light on the workings of family and community in The Hill during its heyday.

Because these three people remembered Teenie so fondly and repeatedly urged me to contact him, one of the people I interviewed for Big George’s Wylie Avenue was Teenie himself. I didn’t realize at the time that all my subsequent literary work would be in conversation with his work.

So there you have it! Teenie’s work got me out of my comfort zone and gave me a chance to show you who I am and where I come from. Not only do I not regret it, I’m actually feeling pretty good about this! Despite being squeamish about family photos on the internet, there’s no denying that I’m proud to be descended from the people in these pictures, and I’m proud that my voice is descended from their voices.

Teenie also photographed so many friends of my family that, to me, Teenie Harris, Photographer: an American Story actually feels more like an extended family album than an exhibit. And I think it will to you too—even if you’re not directly related. Because Teenie’s work has the potential to make anyone, anywhere, feel like part of the family. His eye shows us the truth—we are related, all of us. If you haven’t seen his work yet, go. And if you’ve already seen it, go again. You won’t regret it.

KELLI STEVENS KANE is a poet, playwright, and oral historian whose grandparents were friends of Teenie Harris. In fact Teenie and her grandfather, Jasper Stevens, both played on the Pittsburgh Crawfords and are pictured together on the cover of Rob Ruck’s Sandlot Seasons. Kane’s literary works—an oral history manuscript, Big George’s Wylie Avenue; a play, I Never Laughed So Much at a Funeral; and a poetry manuscript, Hallelujah Science—represent four generations in her family, all rooted in the world that Teenie documented. Kane is also an August Wilson Center Fellow and the recipient of an Advancing Black Arts in Pittsburgh Grant. For more information about her upcoming readings and performances, visit www.kellistevenskane.com.

Related Event: Don’t miss your chance to hear Kelli read some of her work, along with poets Terrance Hayes and Yona Harvey, this Thursday, March 29, at the Cave Canem Poetry Reading.

View the full  Hall of Architecture GigaPan.

View the full Teenie Harris GigaPan.

Here are two more of the recent updates we’ve made to the Teenie Harris Archive based on public feedback and further research on these important photographs. If you’d like to share more information about the people, places, or events in these images, or any of the nearly 1,000 photographs featured in the exhibition, you can send us an email at CMA-ArchiveProject@carnegiemuseums.org, or simply fill out one of the forms available in the exhibition.

The Woman on the Buick

Doris Clark seated on Buick car with steel mill in background, Clairton, c. 1945 (Exhibition No. 391)

When we chose this image to be included in “Teenie Harris, Photographer: An American Story,” we were struck not only by the composition of the image, but by the distillation of many of the themes in the country at the time – the shiny American-made car in the foreground, the beautiful woman (who could have been used for inspiration for the GIs), the swimming pool that represented a degree of leisure for more classes, and the busy steel mill in the distance.  But we didn’t know who she was or where it was taken.

After combing the archives for other photographs of her or the location, we found her again with a group of friends:

Group portrait of men and women, including Doris Clark standing ninth from left, and Lois Weaver standing fifth from right, posed outdoors near stone gate, Clairton, c. 1945

And in an incredible instance of serendipity, we were just about to interview Lois Weaver Watson who was one of those friends who appeared in the picture.  Mrs. Watson finally named “the woman on the Buick” as Doris Clark Moody, and with the new name in hand, we searched the online archives of the Pittsburgh Courier newspaper, and learned more about her.

Doris Christine Clark was born February 22, c. 1928, in Pittsburgh, to Doris and Henry Clark.  Her father died young, and her mother was later re-married to Cicero Griffith, then after his death, to former Negro League baseball player Ralph Mellix.

In the early 1940s, along with her friend Lois Weaver, she was in the dance corps of the National Negro Opera Company and performed in La Traviata.  Doris populated the gossip and society columns in the mid-1940s with reports of the parties she attended and her participation in local fashion shows.  In 1945, she graduated from Schenley High School.  In his “Junior Social Whirl” column on September 15, 1945, Mozelle Thompson in a farewell address upon leaving Pittsburgh to study art in New York stated: “we’ll remember Doris Clark’s house, which was the second home for the Smart Young Set.”

She attended West Virginia State College where she was a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority and graduated in 1951. Shortly thereafter, she took her first teaching job in North Carolina, where she taught in a Jim Crow-era five room school with outhouses and an outdoor water pump.  In 1953, she returned to Pittsburgh and began a long career as a teacher and librarian in the Pittsburgh Public Schools.

In 1956 she married Nathan Brown Jr., and began to participate in “Alpha Wives” activities (a club for women whose husbands were members of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity).  She continued with her education and received a Masters Degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh in 1969.

At some point before 1975, she married Willis Moody and gained stepsons, Wayne and Willis Moody Jr.  She retired from the Pittsburgh Public Schools in 1982, and hundreds of family and friends attended a luncheon party in her honor at the Park Schenley restaurant in Oakland.

Doris Clark Moody passed away on January 29, 2000, and was buried in Homewood Cemetery.

After Martha’s talk, we will enjoy refreshments and a chance to see some of the self-portrait photography created by students from all eleven of the school and community organizations that participated in the Picturing Me program. The details for the event are listed below. This is a great opportunity to see the creative work of young artists from around the city—we hope to see you there!

Sunday, March 18, 3:30–4:30 p.m.
Carnegie Music Hall; Free; Reception follows

You are welcome to come early or stay late to visit the museum’s galleries, which will be open from 12–6:30 pm for this special event.

The Picturing Me exhibition of student work will be on view in the Forum Gallery from Saturday, March 17–Sunday, April 1.

Related article: Spring 2012 CARNEGIE magazine