Related Events

Opening Reception and Film Screening

Thursday, October 14
Members preview 5:30–7 p.m.
Public opening 7–9 p.m.
Hall of Sculpture, galleries, and CMA Lobby
Free; cash bar

Get your first look at this exhibition culled from the museum’s rich collection of contemporary art. This evening only, see the proto-psychedelic film Heaven and Earth Magic (1957–1962) by American artist Harry Smith, on view in the Hall of Sculpture. Smith, known to many as the creator of the famous 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music, which influenced musicians such as Bob Dylan, was also a highly original artist and filmmaker who made this major work by painstakingly animating cutouts from Victorian catalogues and magazines.

Culture Club

Ordinary Voices: Who Speaks for Art/How Does Art Speak?

Thursday, October 21, 5:30–9 p.m.
$10; includes museum admission and two drink tickets

Happy hour has never been so interesting. Start with a drink at 5:30 p.m. and then join in a salon-style conversation in the galleries. Associate curator Dan Byers and a guest artist talk together in Ordinary Madness about the fugitive meanings of artworks in the context of collections and exhibitions.

Experimental Film from the Collection

Friday, October 22, and Wednesday, November 10, 6–7:30 p.m.
CMA Theater; Free

As part of Ordinary Madness, experience two nights of film drawn from the museum’s extraordinary collection of works from the 1960s and 1970s. Some of these vintage prints haven’t been screened in decades and may not be seen again for years to come.

Friday, October 22

This selection of films, focusing on the irrational, ambivalent, and chaotic aspects of everyday experience, includes works that remain controversial milestones.

• Kenneth Anger, Scorpio Rising (1963, 30 min.) and Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965, 3:30 min.)
• Bruce Conner, Cosmic Ray (1962, 4 min.)
• Carolee Schneemann, Fuses (1964–1967, 22 min.)
• Ed Emshwiller, Relativity (1966, 40 min.)

Wednesday, November 10

Highlighting the junction/disjunction between art and life, each of these films plumbs the divide between reality and its distortion.

• George Kuchar, Hold Me While I’m Naked (1966, 15 min.) and I, an Actress (1976, 8:30 min.)
• Roger Jacoby, Kunst Life I & II, (1976, 30 min.)
• Hollis Frampton, Nostalgia (1971, 38 min.)
• Stephanie Beroes, Valley Fever (1979, 20 min.)

“Bound Together” Book Club

Thursday, November 4, 6:30–7:45 p.m.
Meet in the Museum of Art lobby; Free
Space is limited; call 412.622.3288 to register.

This collaborative program of Carnegie Museum of Art and Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh presents a thoughtful 15-minute talk in Ordinary Madness highlighting visual and literary connections, followed by a discussion of George Saunders’s In Persuasion Nation with fellow readers and library staff.

Drop-in Tours: Ordinary Madness

October 15–January 9, Thursdays–Sundays, 12:30–1:15 p.m.
Meet in front of the museum store; Free with museum admission