February 20, 2005

The Carnegie International

I've been meaning for a while to blog the Carnegie International, on view in Pittsburgh until March 20. The exhibit is organized to encourage you to see the artworks in a very particular order, so I'd like to discuss each one in that order, over the course of several posts. But I don't have with me the program that actually says what that order is, and the list of artists on the website is in alphabetical order. So I'll start with a few overview comments.--The first one being, it's a very fine exhibition of contemporary art, and if you have the chance to go you should. And spend lots of money in Pittsburgh.

My tastes in art run toward contemporary stuff (and impressionism and post-impressionism); unlike some people, I genuinely like a lot of installation art. And some of the publicity when this International was being planned had me grumbling, "I hope it's not going to be a lot of John Currin." But I found myself liking the painting better than any other component of the exhibit. Julie Mehretu, Peter Doig, and Francis Alys were especially strong--Doig's and Alys's representational work tended to the mystical, Mehretu's abstractions monumental and in a way clinical. Painting wasn't all--Katarina Kozyra's film installation, Lee Bontecou's sculpture, and Paul Chan's computer video piece were also particularly memorable--but I spent more time hovering around the paintings than I expected to.

(Does that say anything about the current state of painting in the contemporary art world? I doubt it. More likely it reflects this curator's vision.)

I'll start going through the individual artworks once I find the program. I saw the exhibition in January so my recollections may be inaccurate--as ever, if you're dissatisfied with anything, I'll gladly refund your subscription.

Posted by Matt Weiner at February 20, 2005 04:17 PM
Comments

We give you tours and VIP office access and this is all you give us?!

Oy! More, man!

Posted by: sarah at February 21, 2005 09:23 AM

We give you tours and VIP office access and this is all you give us?!

Oy! More, man!

Posted by: sarah at February 21, 2005 09:23 AM

Hey, I thought the VIP access was supposed to be secret. More's coming, trust me. More will be coming even quicker if some kind person sends me a list of the order of the projects, so I don't have to dig around for my copy. [UPDATE: Some kind person did.]

Posted by: Matt Weiner at February 21, 2005 09:28 AM