Saturday 23 February 2013

CI13 Apartment Event | Chris Beauregard & Brandon Boan


Have you already planned anything for next Fall-Winter-Spring? I know all this could sound a little untimely, but Pittsburgh goes fast.

from the official blog http://web.cmoa.org/ci13/exhibition/:
<< The 56th Carnegie International, scheduled to open at Carnegie Museum of Art in October 2013, will be organized by co-curators Daniel Baumann, Dan Byers, and Tina Kukielski. This is the first time in the International’s history that a curatorial team of three people will lead the exhibition.
Initiated by Andrew Carnegie in 1896 in Pittsburgh, and presented every three to five years at Carnegie Museum of Art, the Carnegie International is among the leading exhibitions of contemporary art worldwide. The International serves to present an American audience, especially that of Western Pennsylvania, with a broad and ambitious survey of the art of our time. With hundreds of works by artists from around the globe—including many commissioned specifically for the show—the 2013 International will be a catalyst for new ways to present, experience, and think about art. >>

The 2013 Carnegie International runs October 5, 2013 to March 16, 2014. 
Whether you are artist, visitor, curator or just passing here by pure chance, just get ready: it's gonna be big. The three curators, Daniel Baumann of Basel, Switzerland; associate curator Dan Byers of Pittsburgh; and associate curator Tina Kukielski of New York, were selected in 2010, two years after the Carnegie International Exhibition of year 2008 (you can read more about them here http://old.post-gazette.com/pg/10267/1089883-437.stm on the Pittsburgh Post Gazette website).

Today, though, I would like to introduce a piece of this CI13: the apartment that the Carnegie Museum of Art rented in Lawrenceville. The address is 113 44th Street, Pittsburgh PA and they currently host lectures and the "Apartment Talks". 
<< In the run-up to the exhibition, the curatorial team has established a satellite space in an apartment in the Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh. This space accommodates visiting artists and curatorial colleagues, as well as an ongoing series of screenings, artist talks, and presentations for audiences of up to about fifty people. >> 
The apartment is a satellite space ready to introduce people to art or to guest travelling artists for short periods. The purpose of that, with the blog http://web.cmoa.org/ci13/, is to bring everybody into the event, little by little, <<hopefully, bringing some (but not too much!) transparency to the planning process>>
I would encourage everybody to check it out, since it's well structured and easy to follow. 
© http://web.cmoa.org/ci13/ 

I was invited to go there by Brandon Boan, a smart Pittsburgh-based artist that works between  object-making and performance. You can follow his activity directly on his blog www.brandonboan.info  
Monday night was dedicated to him and his friend Chris Beauregard http://www.chrisbeauregard.com/ 

 Chris was creating "sculptures" with melted sugar, colored with red and made hard again by throwing it in iced water.
Everything was then displayed on a light table where, with gloves, you could medically analyze the result.

 Brandon, elegantly dressed, was welcoming the guests and taking pictures of their teeth. 
After "Polaroidizing" them, everything was projected on a window on 44th Street,
I'm wondering if there is a connection between the teeth photos and the potential (but that wasn't the purpose of the performance) sugar overdose in the other room...

Among refreshments and people chatting, the event took place in this interesting space, temporary enough to allows people to think about the CI, but without exaggerating. The final result will likely be a surprise, but it will be interesting to follow both the pre- and the post-production.

Stay in the loop, then.