Spotlight: The Carnegie International Returns for Its 58th Edition, Seeking to Trace World Events From the Macro to the Micro

What You Need to Know: The 58th edition of the Carnegie International, the longest-running presentation of international art in North America, opened last month in at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh and will run through April 2, 2023. Titled “Is it morning for you yet?”, the exhibition brings recent works and new commissions by contemporary artists together with historical pieces from the museum’s collection, international institutions, and artist estates. The exhibition seeks to chart the geopolitical impact of the United States from 1945 through today in an effort to identify, demarcate, and interrogate the ways in which this force has been felt, from a global perspective down to a highly localized one. The title of the exhibition is drawn from the customary Mayan Kaqchikel salutation “is it morning for you yet?”—as opposed to simply “good morning”—which recognizes that along with differing internal clocks, people’s lives and experiences can vary drastically: when it’s morning for some, it might still be night for others.

Why We Like It: With works from over 100 artists, collectives, and estates from around the world—including recognized names like Claes Oldenburg and Felix Gonzalez-Torres, as well as artists who have never exhibited in the United States before—the range of perspectives and ideas presented in the 58th Carnegie International is truly awe-inspiring. Melike Kara’s weaving (2022), for instance, is a massive wall installation comprised of photographs depicting facets of her native Kurdish culture in the diaspora. Thu Van Tran, a Vietnamese immigrant living in Paris contributes a massive, central atrium installation Colors of Grey (2022), which references “Rainbow Herbicides” that were used in the Vietnam War. Elsewhere, Anh Trần’s paintings employ multiple techniques to engage with discourses around non-Western versus Western practices—just a few examples of the dynamic and ingenious ways that artists have approached the overarching theme. Alongside the visual program, the Carnegie International is hosting “Refractions,” a series of conversations between artists and collectives and audiences.

According to the Curator: “Our hope was to create an exhibition that speaks to common entanglements, desires, and shared experiences through divergent aesthetic currents and artistic practices. The 58th Carnegie International brings together an ensemble of erratic, cunning, unruly, disobedient, undisciplined, and intractable attitudes, and gestures that overwhelm the ambition of any one organizational intent. We are grateful to all the artists and contributors for sharing their art, time, and thoughts with us, and look forward to finally welcoming visitors to experience this exhibition.” —Sohrab Mohebbi, the Kathe and Jim Patrinos Curator of the 58th Carnegie International

See inside the 58th Carnegie International below.