Walking through the hallway at Carnegie Museum of Art, my eyes detected the familiar two letters of DU [“You”] for the renowned Swiss Art magazine founded in 1941. It was the February 1983 issue dedicated to Pittsburgh (!). Edgar Munhall, born and raised in Pittsburgh and later curator of the Frick Collection in New York (1965–2000) contributed the opening essay. Unimpressed by the devastating descriptions of poets and intellectuals, he portrays the steel city in a surprisingly positive way. Munhall had left Pittsburgh for New York in 1951, then 17 years old.

“The city I was leaving did not have a very good reputation. As one of the greatest industrial centers of the word it had been described by Lincoln Steffens (1866–1936, American journalist) in 1905 as ‘Hell with the lid off.’ A few years later [sic] Herbert Spencer (1820–1903, English philosopher) opined that, ‘A month in Pittsburgh would justify anyone in committing suicide,’ and, on her deathbed in 1924 Eleonora Duse (1858–1924, Italian actress) was said to have exclaimed, ‘Oh, my God, I am dying in Pittsburgh!’ The short-story-writer O. Henry (1862–1910, American) called the city ‘the low-down-est hole in the surface of the earth.’”

Unlike them, Munhall expresses the true love for his hometown: “Growing up in such a maligned environment had left me with totally different feelings, for I had always thought that Pittsburgh possessed a magical and unique beauty, sinister and awesome. Even before I had found artistic parallels in Whistler’s views of London to justify my cause, I had thrilled to the experience of walking to school unable to see through the smoky fog more than three feet in front me.”

Gabriela Burkhalter is the guest curator of The Playground Project.

On May 13th, in collaboration with CMU School of Art, we hosted a Belfast punk event that had been percolating for over a year. I had been wanting to screen a documentary on the subject by John T. Davis, called Shellshock Rock (1979), since Duncan Campbell told me about how influential the film had been for him, but it took ages—and a circuitous train of a million emails—for me to get my hands on a copy. Around the same time as the DVD arrived from the UK, someone posted the whole thing on YouTube. So enjoy with unearned ease, but feel sorry you missed out on the dance party. That’s right: after the screening, DJ John Carson spun some records and people danced. An Apartment first (I think).

Featuring Stiff Little Fingers, Rhesus Negative, and Good Vibrations label artists Rudi, the Outcasts, and the Undertones, Shellshock Rock  is an affectionate, DIY portrait of the Belfast punk scene in 1978–79. The film captures the atmosphere of youthful idealism—amid the everyday turmoil of the Troubles—that set Belfast punk apart from its more rancorous counterparts in London and New York. The Good Vibrations studio and record label, run by legendary small-time impresario Terri Hooley, became the center of the Belfast scene, gaining prominence with hits like “Teenage Kicks” by the Undertones. Belfast-born artist and head of CMU’s School of Art, John Carson, worked for Hooley as a young man and introduced the film (which provides very little context in itself). His comments echoed Davis’s recollections of that time:

“Belfast in the late 70’s was a very different place from the one in which I had enjoyed live music in my youth. Now Belfast at night was a ghost town. No one was going into town, there was no place for the kids to go. But they were making music, they were coming together…and importantly they were coming together from different sides of the community. This was a real chink of light in what was Northern Ireland’s darkest hour, and I just felt I had to record it on film.”

After the screening, John DJ’ed a fantastic set culled from his personal vinyl collection, including some rare first edition albums from Belfast and beyond.  John’s set list and images of his Good Vibes poster and Christmas card designs to come.

Watch the trailer for Good Vibrations, the recently released biopic on Terri Hooley, here.

Ian Finch, Associate Editor for Publications here at Carnegie Museum of Art, just sent me this link to Abid (1970). Amazing, right? Pramod Pati (1932–1975) was an Indian filmmaker.

This summer, Carnegie Museum of Art will be presenting the third installment of the 2-Minute Film Festival.  The festival is always one of our favorite events, bringing in crowds of people to the museum’s outdoor Sculpture Court  to see how much creativity can be fit into 120 seconds.  This year’s theme, in keeping with the upcoming International, is “At Play,” and in addition to the outdoor screening we will be offering a number of playful activities as a part of our monthly Culture Club series, giving each visitor the opportunity to make their own short film.  The event will take place on Thursday, July 18, so mark your calendars!

You are invited to submit your most creative, most innovative, briefest video engaging in some way with the notion of play to the 2MFF.  Each selected entry will eligible for People’s Choice and Juror’s Choice prizes, and for the first time this year, films chosen for the festival screening will also be made available on the 2MFF website, where visitors will be able to vote for their favorite prior to the event. The deadline for submissions is Friday, June 21, 2013.

If you can’t wait until July to watch some short films, we will be making promotional  6-second videos for the event and posting them on Vine.  Be sure to follow us, and submit your own Vine using hashtag #2MFF.

Philip Leers, Senior Research Associate
Time-Based Media Collection, Carnegie Museum of Art

From today’s perspective, George Sauter’s The Bridal Morning is only one among innumerable paintings showing a female nude. It depicts a standing female from behind who is being assisted by two other women as she gets dressed for her wedding. But in 1909 the public response to the work was greatly divided. The painting, which received second prize at the Carnegie Institute in the 1909 exhibition, aroused a huge controversy ranging from praise to condemnation.

This controversy was not limited to Pittsburgh. Newspapers from the time confirm a lively debate being waged nationwide and even abroad. According to the reports, thousands traveled to see the painting. American Art News gave an account of more than 29,000 people who visited the galleries during the first two days—crowds must have poured in a steady stream. Up to 5,000 people at a time were estimated in the first days of the exhibition. Two weeks later, admissions had passed 50,000 and finally reached 105,000 until the closing at the end of June. The International—then called the Annual Exhibition—was declared the most successful exhibition in America and was dubbed the “Only American Salon” in the press.

It is reported that people were mostly attracted to get a glimpse of the bride, but ultimately spent many hours in and around the museum. A remarkable article in the Pittsburgh Leader newspaper on May 11 gives a humorous account of the renowned clergyman Charles Henry Parkhurst visiting the exhibition. This New York reformer was supposed to be shocked by the content of the picture, but he simply passed by. Questioned about his thoughts he answered: “Huh—her mother ought to take her home.” The press covered the controversy wryly, even recommending several extraordinary coverings for the bride.

Sauter himself responded with a letter to John W. Beatty, then Director of the Carnegie Institute, which was reprinted in Pittsburgh’s Bulletin on June 1:

From newspaper sent to me, I gather that there is a grave misunderstanding in the mind of the public in Pittsburg as to the meaning of the picture. By this time you will know much more about it than I do. [...] “The Bridal Morning” is a symbolic picture; it has nothing to do with an individual ceremony in this or any other country or of any particular period. It is universal and intended to embody an idea expressed through form and color. It represents the morning of joy, sorrow and anxiety in the life of a woman. The day when she enters into her real mission in life to become the mother of a race. [...] It is the morning of life ― springtime. The future of the bride is full of hope and promise ― suggested by the joyous coloring and sunlight.

Prior to Sauter’s painting, the news reports on the International were predominantly moderate reviews concerning the selection of paintings, and they typically covered the formalities of the opening ceremonies, visiting celebrities, and records of the speeches. The first time an individual work came into focus, Gaston La Touche’s The Bath in 1907, was also the result of its nude subject. But the agitation surrounding The Bridal Morning was exceptional during the first decades of the exhibition.

Art historian Albert Boime stated in his article “George Sauter and the Bridal Morning“ (The American Art Journal) that the attention given the painting in the United States was even comparable to Manet’s Le déjeuner sur l’herbe, shown during the 1863 Salon des refusés in Paris. But Boime also noted that “the painting could hardly have been indicted as a subversive aesthetic experiment in 1909,” like the Manet. Boime investigated the unanticipated response to the picture and asserted that a “profound sadness and breathtaking stillness” pervades the work. Along with remarkable illumination, the painting also reveals a “highly original symbolic approach.” Boime situated the public’s irritation somewhere in between this unexpected combination of allegory and modernity. Though Sauter insists this is a sanctified wedding scene, for many viewers the melancholy tone of the image could convey tragedy.

George Sauter, who is widely unknown today, was born in Rettenbach, Germany, in 1866. He moved to London in 1889 where he married Lilian Galsworthy and was introduced to a circle of British artists including James McNeill Whistler, James Guthrie, and others. He participated in establishing the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, for which he served as Honorary Secretary during Whistler’s Presidency (1898–1903). Although Sauter never became a British citizen, he became known as a British painter. He painted portraits and landscapes, working largely in oil on canvas, and also produced lithographs. Having maintained his German citizenship, he was interned during WW I and later repatriated to Germany, where he died in 1937.

Nicola Schroeder is a German art historian currently living in Pittsburgh and working on the archive of the Carnegie International.

The Carnegie Museum of Art shares a massive building with both the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the Carnegie Library. One of my favorite things to do is to walk through the art museum’s massive Hall of Architecture and use my employee badge to open a small dark door in the back corner and then suddenly appear in the middle of a bustling public library. A few steps away, nestled in a cozy corner of the very user-friendly first floor, is the Zine Collection. There are always teenagers and others reading the zines. I love encountering these DIY, subversive, weird, brilliant little publications in the middle of the library. The collection is overseen by Jude Vachon, who does all sorts of good things with zines and art around town. Here’s a nice piece she wrote for the Post-Gazette about the library.

Next time you’re at the museum, don’t miss the zines next door.

Are we the only art museum in the world building a playground? Maybe, maybe not, but hey, it started as a wild idea or serious joke (or both) and now kids play out there! We are still puzzled that it happened. I know that you know that it isn’t enough to just have an idea. It needed the thing itself—the Lozziwurm as invented in 1972 by Swiss artist and designer Yvan Pestalozzi. Which isn’t enough either.

It needed Lynn Zelevansky, our visionary director, and the great enthusiasm of Marilyn Russell, our chair and curator for education, and the generosity of Maja Oeri and Hans Bodenmann, co-chairs of the Friends of the 2013 Carnegie International. But it needed even more than that, it needed the women and men on the ground, Rob Thompson of Terra Design Studio, the crew from Plantscape Inc. and from Technique Architectural Products, and Knoepfel Kunststoffe in Switzerland; it needed Carnegie Museum’s of Art John Lyon, Jeff Lovett, Hannah Silbert, Tony Young, and super MC of organization Sarah Minnaert. Still not enough though—because what’s a play sculpture without children? Well, they came, saw, and conquered it. Last Saturday, hundreds of them! And yes, this is part of The Playground Project of the 2013 Carnegie International opening on October 4, 5, and 6, 2013.

The jawbone of a Nicaraguan pig, scissors touched by Kim Il-Sung, a cat staring at you from a Lawrenceville window…. just a taste of the many inspirations shared by presenting artists at the SIX x ATE: Vegetable event last Monday. The SIX x ATE series is an ongoing themed dinner and lecture event promoting a more interdisciplinary arts community in Pittsburgh. The series began in the summer of 2012 at the 2013 Carnegie International apartment before moving to other sites, including the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and Bar Marco. For each dinner, six artists and one cuisinier are asked to present work on a theme. The artists present for a few minutes throughout the night, as guests (a mixture of arts professionals and others connected to the theme) enjoy tasty treats, meet new people, and share ideas.

Monday’s event featured the artists of CSA PGH: Kim Beck, David Bernabo, Lenka Clayton, William Earl Kofmehl III, Alexi Morrissey, and Ed Panar. The CSA PGH project is based on the model created by Minneapolis’ Springboard for the Arts and is supported by the Sprout Fund and Fractured Atlas. Similar to the boxes of fruit and vegetables that one might get from a local farm as an agricultural CSA, the CSA PGH will create “shares” of art to feed the public’s cultural appetite. Each artist will create 50 editions, which will be packaged into 50 shares for the public. These will go on sale April 30th on www.CSAPGH.com, where you can also find more information about the project and the artists.

Guests of SIX x ATE: Vegetable also had a special treat from Tina, Daniel, and Dan. Their dramatic reading of the 2013 Carnegie International press release with visualization provided by Pinterest moved the audience to tears, or at least chuckles.

For more information on SIX x ATE or to subscribe to the mailing list, visit www.caseywhat.com.

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Casey Droege was raised by two artists and a mime. Their incessant side hustles, ranging from chimney sweep to insurance sales, created the time management monster/slightly organized tornado that is Casey. And while her mother made it clear to her that she should go into computers, she now lives and works as an artist using language to objectify the subjective.

(Photos: Heather Mull)

Check this, wherever you are! Tim Abdellah’s blog on “music from Moroccan cassettes that is, to the best of my knowledge, not available outside of Morocco. It is shared here to spread the appreciation of Moroccan music and artists.”

2013 Carnegie International October 5, 2013–March 16, 2014 carnegieinternational.org

Ei Arakawa/Henning Bohl, Phyllida Barlow, Yael Bartana, Sadie Benning, Bidoun Library, The Collection, Nicole Eisenman, Lara Favaretto, Vincent Fecteau, Rodney Graham, Guo Fengyi, Wade Guyton, Rokni Haerizadeh, He An, Amar Kanwar, Dinh Q. Lê, Mark Leckey, Pierre Leguillon, Sarah Lucas, Tobias Madison, Zanele Muholi, Paulina Olowska, The Playground Project, Pedro Reyes, Kamran Shirdel, Gabriel Sierra, Taryn Simon, Frances Stark, Joel Sternfeld, Mladen Stilinović, Zoe Strauss, Henry Taylor, Tezuka Architects, Transformazium, Erika Verzutti, Joseph Yoakum. More information

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