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May 27–September 17, 2006
Treasure Room
This exhibition takes an imaginative approach to presenting
artworks as though they are actors in a theatrical revue. The decorative arts
department has selected the diverse cast from the museum's holdings of more
than 2,000 ceramic objects. Casting Call: Ceramics Center Stage presents
a colorful array of 18th, 19th, and 20th-century performers, including a rare
Meissen porcelain orange stand from the Swan Service (1737-1741), a
highly decorated, covered cup made by Sèvres (1851-1854), and a black porcelain
tea service designed by Walter Gropius around 1967. Also joining the cast are
several recent acquisitions, such as Betty Woodman's Pillow Pitcher (1980)
and a vase (c. 1951) by Maija Grotell. The prima donnas take center stage; but
many of the objects on view are versatile players with broad repertoires or
have been frequently typecast and only called upon to play obscure roles. In
thematic vignettes, ranging from style and technology to humor and cultural
connections, these works of art prove that although they cannot all occupy
center stage, they each deserve a moment in the spotlight.
General support for the museum's exhibition program is provided by The Heinz
Endowments, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and Allegheny Regional Asset
District.
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Jun. 24–September 3, 2006
Scaife Works on Paper Gallery
In 1938, Ansel Adams took a trip to Yosemite National Park with
friends Georgia O'Keeffe, David McAlpin, and Godfrey and Helen Rockefeller.
Adams took photographs both of the landscape and of these individuals
documenting the adventure. Adams arranged his work into three handcrafted
albums, one of which was given to McAlpin. The exhibition displays photographs
from the pages of these journals, including some of Adams' best-known nature
images, and provides an intimate look at this memorable group of friends.
Yosemite 1938: On the Trail with Ansel Adams and Georgia O'Keeffe was
organized by the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
General support for the museum's exhibition program is provided by The Heinz
Endowments, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and Allegheny Regional Asset
District.
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August 12–November 12, 2006
Forum Gallery
The subjective experience of space—both architectural and
physiological—brings together the photographs of Luisa Lambri and the
sculptures of Ernesto Neto. Lambri's luminous, minimalist images reveal the
interiors of well-known modern and contemporary architectural structures,
recording subtle differences in light, shadow, and perceived space. Her images
do not document structures in the traditional photographic sense but rather
interact with them as an interpretive, visual embodiment of her own experience
of space. This exhibition includes her photographs of the interior of architect
Luis Barragán's home in Mexico City.
Neto explores the corporeal, sensual, and tactile possibilities of sculpture
through translucent fabric forms that often are anchored by bundles of aromatic
herbs and spices. Entering one of Neto's environments is similar to walking
into the interior of a body in a science fiction fantasy. Unlike more
traditional sculpture, Okitimanaia Ogu (2000) is suspended from the
ceiling, and the viewer walks beneath the work, which is both an amoeba-like
entity and a kind of otherworldly architecture. This collapse of the
distinction between architecture and biology lies at the heart of the artist's
work and has led him to describe his practice as a hybrid
"body/space/landscape."
At the juncture between the rational world and the world of dreams, Lambri and
Neto embark on their own personal yet complementary explorations of the poetic
dimensions of space.
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