Vicky A Clark is an independent curator and writer, involved in contemporary art and issues since the early 1980s in Pittsburgh. Clark worked at the Carnegie Museum of Art from 1981–1996.
The Frick Brings “Once in a Lifetime” Exhibition to Pittsburgh
In the business of collecting art, father and daughter, Henry Clay (1849-1919) and Helen Clay Frick (1888-1984), were a formidable duo. Helen was devoted to him, never changing Clayton, their Pittsburgh home, after her father decamped to New York. She chose to remain in his shadow, but he did include her early in his pursuit …
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The Fine Collection Follows and Augments a Long Line of Pittsburgh Benefactors
Andrew Carnegie provided the means to establish the Carnegie Institute, but he believed that it should be supported by those who use it. He wasn’t much of an art collector, so he left it to others to buy or give the grand building’s objects. The art museum’s collection grew very slowly at first, with purchases …
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Combining the Political and Artistic
We live a media world, constantly bombarded with unprecedented information delivered on various platforms. It can be next to impossible to separate fact and from, but everyone has the right to an opinion. Many still believe that the art museum, the so-called palace of culture, should remain steeped in the beautiful and provide an escape …
The Carnegie International
Like it or not, the Carnegie International eclipses everything the Carnegie Museum of Art does. Every director has grumbled about how it commandeers all available resources. But it’s a time-honored tradition, still associated 125 years later with the values of founding father Andrew Carnegie. It has survived the vicissitudes of world wars, economic crises, evolving …
What About Aesthetics?
The latest iteration of the Carnegie International dropped in the era of the pandemic. What would it say about our world situation as reflected in the work of contemporary artists? How would it fit within the historic framework of the exhibition that has been instrumental in shaping the character of the Carnegie Museum of Art? …
In the Mind of the Beholder
Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis came across an unassuming structure, located at the five-point intersection on Lowrie Street in Troy Hill, where they have a studio. Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation had placed a plaque on the structure, informing visitors that it housed the upper level of Pittsburgh’s first incline, founded in 1887, that …
Now and Then: Artemesia Genteleschi and Kehinde Wiley at the Frick
The Frick has gifted us with a rare treat: the opportunity to view an iconic work from the 17th century paired with a major work of our century. The two paintings of the Judith and Holofernes story, created four centuries apart, comprise “Slay” which is on exhibit through Sunday. Artemesia Gentileschi’s version depicts the classic …
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Photo as Fact?
Living through the COVID-19 pandemic will become another watershed moment in our lives, and we will be asking “Where were you when…” for years to come. I remember what I was doing when the planes hit the twin towers on 9/11, but the event that rocked my world was the assassination of JFK. I might …
The Carnegie’s Jasper Johns Exhibition: Out of Step With His Time and Ours
The major fall show at the Carnegie Museum of Art, “An Art of Changes: Jasper Johns Prints, 1960–2018,” raises questions about the museum’s programming. Jasper Johns is an American master whose work set the stage for pop art, which, in turn, changed the course of art of the last 75 years. He merged abstract expressionist …
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Breaking New Ground in the Pittsburgh Art World
Fiberart International 2019 is up through August 24, 2019 at Brew House Association and Contemporary Craft. “How did a small group of Pittsburgh housewives practicing the dainty craft of hand embroidery give birth to the rowdy, sophisticated, benchmark triennial we know as ‘Fiberart International?’” The answer to this rather cheeky question points to a group …
New Faces at the Westmoreland
With a renewed interest in what kinds of people are represented in art museums, a new exhibition at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art offers some rarely seen faces. “Mingled Visions: The Photographs of Edward S. Curtis and Will Wilson” (March 30–June 30) presents images of Native Americans taken a century apart and from different …
Exuberance at the Warhol
Devon Shimoyama’s just-ended exhibition at the Andy Warhol Museum proves the enduring power of Warhol’s work 30 years after his death and shows that the museum has no interest in becoming a shrine to a self-referential and reverential hagiography. “Cry, Baby” brings a young talent to our attention, while simultaneously offering new insights into the …
Art or Fashion?
The Frick Pittsburgh continues its recent foray into fashion with exuberance, exhibiting a group of contemporary paper recreations of iconic outfits from the past. Ranging from the era of the Medici to the early 20th century with costumes from the Ballets Russes, “Isabelle de Borchgrave: Fashioning Art From Paper” though (January 6, 2019) seems tailormade …
The 57th Carnegie International: Looking Forward While Mindful of the Past
The Carnegie International is here again, the 57th in the series inaugurated by founder Andrew Carnegie in 1896. While international exhibitions have proliferated in the last 50 years, the Carnegie International remains one of the few based in a museum with its own identity—one rich with diverse offerings ranging from a museum of art to …
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Internationals I Have Known…
When the Carnegie International opens this fall, it may appear as if the world’s latest art elegantly touches down like an ethereal being whose time to visit us has come ‘round again. But if you knew it as I do, you would know that this periodic being is full of, shall we say, blemishes and …
Look What’s Happening in Cleveland
With the opening of the Carnegie International less than a month away, I drove to Cleveland to see their inaugural international exhibition. Under the umbrella of “Front International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art,” projects happened as far away as Akron and Oberlin, but the majority were located in three Cleveland neighborhoods. With a loose theme …
And the Artists Are…
When Ingrid Schaffner was named the curator of the 2018 Carnegie International (October 13, 2018–March 25, 2019), I had a sense that she would bring a change to this venerable exhibition at Pittsburgh’s palace of culture. Steeped in tradition and history, the show, for the most part, has been on the conservative side of contemporary …
Then and Now
After a foray into fashion, The Frick Art and Historical Center has returned to its comfort zone with “Van Gogh, Monet, Degas: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts” (March 17-July 8, 2018). Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon amassed an extremely large collection of art, and while he was …
A Bold Look at Race Through Art at the Carnegie Museum of Art
When Vogue lauded “20 / 20: The Studio Museum of Harlem and Carnegie Museum of Art” as the most important art show in America, they guaranteed a critical response. Setting aside the hyperbole, the magazine established race as the context for viewing and thinking about the exhibition, stating that “as monuments to Confederate generals come …
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Warhol Brings Báez’s Powerful “Bloodlines” to Pittsburgh
The Andy Warhol Museum’s first two exhibitions of the year are a great pairing. Jessica Beck’s excellent My Perfect Body brought together work from Warhol’s entire career that focused on body issues, from the nose picking and acne of his youth to the scars from being shot in 1968 to images of bodybuilders and Christ. …
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Serious Threads
First the Frick announced a new programming initiative in fashion and brought “Killer Heels” to Pittsburgh. The impossibly impractical yet stunningly gorgeous shoes might have made more sense at the Warhol where Andy’s advertising and shoe portrait drawings would have cheekily made the connection between costume, eroticism, design, and identity while contextualizing the to-die-for heels. …
Exploring the Work of Damianos and Mulcahy at the Westmoreland
To paraphrase a new friend, director general of the Pakistan National Council of the Arts Jamal Shah: in celebrating life, art follows the inquisitive human mind in its desire to delve deeper as it challenges the established reality and surprises us with new realities. It challenges us to deepen our quest to explore the overwhelming …
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