Media Kit

October 2008

Pittsburgh Filmmakers and Carnegie Museum of Art present films by Life on Mars artist Bruce Conner

In conjunction with Life on Mars, the 2008 Carnegie International, Pittsburgh Filmmakers is teaming up with Carnegie Museum of Art to present films from the museum's collection by International artist Bruce Conner.  The free screening will be held Friday, October 17, and repeated Saturday, October 18, at 8:00 p.m. in Filmmakers' Melwood Screening Room, 477 Melwood Avenue.  This is the second International-related screening organized by Carnegie Museum of Art and Pittsburgh Filmmakers.

September 2008

Significant recent acquisitions at Carnegie Museum of Art

Carnegie Museum of Art's plan for building its collections is based on founder Andrew Carnegie's strategy of collection "the old masters of tomorrow," acquiring paintings and sculpture from the Carnegie International, the museum's global contemporary art exhibition, first established in 1896.  Over time, the museum's collecting has broadened to include works on paper, decorative arts, ancient, African, and Asian arts, films and video, and architecture.

August 2008

Carnegie Museum of Art announces fall lecture series for Life on Mars, the 2008 Carnegie International, co-organized with Carnegie Mellon University School of Art

Five artists from Life on Mars, the 2008 Carnegie International, will speak about their work as part of a free series of lectures held on the neighboring campuses of cosponsors Carnegie Museum of Art and Carnegie Mellon University School of Art.

July 2008

Unsmoke Systems connects with Carnegie Museum of Art to bring contemporary art to Braddock, Pennsylvania, with films by Carnegie International artist Wilhelm Sasnal, the exhibition opening for Out of This Furnace, and a happening afterparty.

An evening celebrating arts and culture in the industrial community of Braddock, Pennsylvania, will be held on Saturday, July 19, 2008.  The evening will present three special events, including the first screening of the Life on Mars, the 2008 Carnegie International film series; the launch of Unsmoke Systems, Braddock's new arts and cultural venue, with Out of This Furnace, an exhibition featuring 16 Pittsburgh-based artists; and an afterparty featuring DJs, live performances and open bar.  Organized in collaboration with Carnegie Museum of Art and the Mayor's Office of Braddock, the evening is free and open to the public.

Pittsburgh Filmmakers and Carnegie Museum of Art present Life on Mars: New Perspectives, a Sunday film series
In conjunction with Life on Mars, the 2008 Carnegie International, Pittsburgh Filmmakers is teaming up with Carnegie Museum of Art for the presentation of a series of popular films from the last 50 years that explore themes of humanization, mechanization, and changes in our world that affect our daily lives.

Carnegie Museum of Art presents Sound and Vision, an evening with Life on Mars artist Barry McGee, music by Japanther, Extreme Animals, and Centipede E'est, and videos by Paper Rad
On July 24, Carnegie Museum of Art moves from talk to rock in a free evening event held in the museum’s Sculpture Court. At 8:30 p.m., Carnegie International curator Douglas Fogle teams up with Life on Mars artist Barry McGee for a conversation about the artist’s work, his influences, and how he responds to the phrase “life on Mars.”...

Ranjani Shettar, 2008 Carnegie International artist, to speak at Carnegie Museum of Art
Artist Ranjani Shettar, featured in Life on Mars, the 2008 Carnegie International, will talk about her work on July 15, 2008, 6:30-7:30 p.m., in the Carnegie Lecture Hall. The presentation is free to the public. On July 15 and 16, Shettar will also discuss her work and artistic process as part of a two-day teacher workshop on aesthetics...

May 2008
Life on Mars, the 2008 Carnegie International artists Vija Celmins and Apichatpong Weerasethakul win Carnegie Prize and Fine Prize
The Latvian-born New York-based artist Vija Celmins and Apichatpong Weerasethakul from Bangkok, Thailand, were awarded prizes at the opening ceremonies of Life on Mars, the 2008 Carnegie International.

Catalogue to accompany Life on Mars, the 2008 Carnegie InternationalCarnegie Museum of Art has published a fully illustrated catalogue to accompany Life on Mars, the 2008 Carnegie International which opens May 3, 2008 at the museum. Life on Mars, the 55th installation of the Carnegie International, explores the continually perplexing, increasingly relevant question of what it means to be human in the world today...

Life on Mars lectures, classes, and events
Carnegie Museum of Art presents lectures, classes, and events to accompany Life on Mars: the 2008 Carnegie International...

February 2008
Backgrounder for Life on Mars, the 2008 Carnegie International
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 in 1896 became the linchpin of that scheme, and a means of building a collection for the museum through the purchase of the "Old Masters of tomorrow," whose work would be on display. Since that time, at least 300 works have entered Carnegie Museum of Art's permanent collection through the exhibitions, including works by Louise Bourgeois, Mary Cassatt, Eduardo Chillida, Willem de Kooning, Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, Ellsworth Kelley, Mike Kelly, Anselm Kiefer, Sol LeWitt, Camille Pissarro, Sigmar Polke, John Singer Sargent, Richard Serra, Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol, and James A. McNeill Whistler, among others...

Artists Announced
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...The artists whose work will be featured in Life on Mars, the 2008 Carnegie International were announced today by Douglas Fogle, curator of contemporary art at Carnegie Museum of Art and curator of the exhibition. The show, on view from May 3, 2008, through January 11, 2009, will include works by 40 emerging and established artists from 17 countries...

December 2007
Advisory Committee and Graphic Design and Architectural Firms
The members of the 2008 Carnegie International advisory committee, all outstanding leaders in the contemporary art world, were selected to serve as consultants and critical reviewers for Douglas Fogle, curator of contemporary art at Carnegie Museum of Art, as he organizes the 2008 Carnegie International. In addition to their contributions as advisors to the exhibition, they will also serve as the jury for the Carnegie Prize and Fine Prize...

Carnegie Museum of Art Fact Sheet
Carnegie Museum of Art, founded in 1895 by Andrew Carnegie, is one of the components of Carnegie Institute,
which also includes The Andy Warhol Museum, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, and Carnegie Science Center. Carnegie Museum of Art serves a Pittsburgh-area audience of 2.2 million people as well as visitors from eastern Ohio, northern West Virginia, and western Pennsylvania. During the past ten years, the museum's audience has also become increasingly global, thanks in part to the Carnegie International exhibition, one of the most important forums in the world today for the presentation of contemporary art...

Douglas Fogle, Curator
Douglas Fogle, curator of the 2008 Carnegie International, has been curator of contemporary art at Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh since 2005. In this capacity, he has organized a series of exhibitions in the museum's Forum Gallery, including Forum 57: Luisa Lambri and Ernesto Neto; Forum 59: Phil Collins; Forum 60: Rivane Neuenschwander, and Forum 61: Lowry Burgess. Prior to his appointment at Carnegie Museum of Art,
Fogle was on the curatorial staff of the Walker Art Center, in Minneapolis, from 1994 to 2005...

Curator's Statement
"Life on Mars," the 2008 Carnegie International, focuses on the increasingly relevant question of what it means to be human in the world today. Foregoing any universal answers to this question, the artists in the exhibition investigate particular aspects of the human condition, moving along paths that are both introspective and worldly while poetically traversing the dramatic spectrum from tragedy to comedy. The question, "Is there life on Mars?" is a rhetorical one, posed in the face of a world in which increasingly accelerating global events--political, social, natural, and economic--seem to challenge and threaten to overtake our most basic forms of everyday existence...

A History of the Carnegie International
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 in 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, the Carnegie International is the oldest exhibition of international contemporary art in North America, and the second oldest in the world...

Contact Information

Tey Stiteler
Carnegie Museum of Art
412.688.8690
stitelert@carnegiemuseums.org