Domestic globalism at the Carnegie - 1995 Carnegie International; various artists, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Art in America, Feb, 1996 by Brooks Adams

For all its claims to internationalism, the show includes work by only three artists who are unfamiliar in America. Beatriz Milhazes's neo-Kupkaesque swirling canvases from Brazil, executed in a mixed technique of painting and printing, struck me as a noteworthy attempt to feminize certain Baroque motifs such as the ruff into bold abstract patterning. From the Netherlands, Rob Birza's eccentric combines of abstract painting with cat 1970 thriftshop furniture and found grids (such as office ceiling vents) looked plucky and decidedly perverse. From Japan, the 57-year-old Tomoharu Murakami's small and impacted, densely stippled black paintings hit a kind of point zero of maximum pigment; we learn from the catalogue that Murakami, who lives in Tokyo, is a practicing Roman Catholic. In this show, with so many big names and relatively few new talents, there is perhaps an undue pressure on the work of these three artists to deliver more than it can.

Armstrong has come up with a show that is heavily U.S.-and European-based, and rather stately and conservative in its tone It includes 36 artists from 16 countries, and much was made in the promotional press about how widely Armstrong had traveled around the world in search of new talent. He worked with an international advisory committee that included Phillip M. Johnston, director of the Art Museums of the Carnegie Institute (who resigned in December '95, prompting speculation that Armstrong might take his job); Bice Curiger, editor of Parkett and a curator at the Kunsthaus in Zurich; Mark Rosenthal, curator of 20th-century art at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; and Vicente Todoli, curator of contemporary art at IVAM in Valencia, Spain.

As for the much-vaunted Carnegie Prize, the 1995 version was doomed to spark the usual hohum reactions. Everyone seems to agree that these prizes have become pretty much of a joke. The 1995 prize jury included the advisory committee (with the exception of Johnston and Armstrong) as well as two Carnegie trustees, Milton Fine and Juliet Lea Hilman Simonds of Pittsburgh. They decided to split the $20,000 prize between Artschwager and Polke. The division was not exactly surprising, given the prominence of Artschwager in the curator's worldview, and the fact that Curiger is a longtime supporter of Polke's and is known to have lobbied strenuously on his behalf.

The Carnegie seems particularly intent at this point on its ongoing renovation. Armstrong tells me that Gluckman's next project will be the sprucing-up of the four-block-long grand foyer that runs from the museum cafe to the Music Hall. Thus the centenary proves itself, not surprisingly, to be concerned with the conservation and beautification of the museum plant. As for the future of the International, Armstrong commented that he would like to schedule the next one for the summer months to attract higher attendance.

Meanwhile the Carnegie lurches into its second century with an International that is, on the whole, quite well thought through. I wish that Armstrong had extended the show to include at least one new installation at the Andy Warhol Museum across town. Perhaps Angela Grauerholz's photo cabinet might have been dismantled and its contents displayed at the Warhol. As it was, the exhibits of old Joseph Beuys photographs, Arena--where would I have got if I had been intelligent (1972), and Marilyn Monroe celebrity stills from Warhol's archive looked rather forlorn during the International's opening fesitivities. The Warhol Museum is, after aD, a great new asset for the Carnegie, and it should not have been left to languish during an otherwise triumphant centennial year.