A & E

The Carnegie Museum of Art's 2008 Carnegie International exhibition titled "Life on Mars" is expected to bring nearly 250,000 art lovers to the museum during its nine-month run, many of whom will be from out of town. Those that do come can expect to find a plethora of art exhibitions throughout the Pittsburgh area that are planned in conjunction with the International.

For example, on Saturday, the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts opened what many believe to be an important contemporary art exhibit all its own, at least in Pittsburgh, and that's the "Pittsburgh Biennial." And just last weekend, the Mattress Factory, the world-renowned museum of installation art located on the North Side, opened "Inner and Outer Space," an exhibit of installation works recently completed by nine artists from six countries.

Jeffrey Inscho, the Mattress Factory's marketing coordinator, says that "Inner and Outer Space" is in no way a "response" to the International. But, he says, "It just makes sense for us to have one of (our) large-scale shows open during the run of the International -- a time when Pittsburgh experiences an influx of international art lovers."

Other than cross marketing to those art lovers, Inscho says, the Carnegie Museum of Art has set up bus tours to the Mattress Factory and that the Mattress Factory has planned events and collectors brunches scheduled throughout the run of the show.

"Traditionally, because art is at the front of the mind during the International's run, this is also an extremely busy time for the Mattress Factory," Inscho says. "Art lovers are curious by nature, so if they are unaware of the Mattress Factory, their curiosity leads them here."

Inscho says already, as of this past week, "General foot traffic has increased, the cafe is busier and we are seeing more sales in the museum's shop."

The Mattress Factory schedules approximately one or two large-scale shows like this each year, and Inscho says the title and theme of this show have been "two years in the works" and not necessarily planned around the International.

However, timing for the opening of the "Pittsburgh Biennial 08" could not have been planned more propitiously.

Featuring a wide variety of works ranging from installation and performance art to film and video, this contemporary art exhibition hosted by Pittsburgh Filmmakers and Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, which merged in 2006, showcases the talents of more than 40 artists from Western Pennsylvania.

"PF/PCA had the Biennial on the schedule for some time of course, and the timing happened to coincide beautifully with the International," says Laura Domencic, director of Pittsburgh Center for the Arts.

To make sure the Pittsburgh Biennial has even more "legs" than in years previous, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, in the past year, began developing an exhibition exchange with Philadelphia's Center for Emerging Visual Artists.

That means that 14 of the Pittsburgh artists featured in the Pittsburgh Biennial also will have their work on display at the Center for Emerging Visual Artists, while the work of 23 Philadelphia artists are included in this exhibition. "We thought it would be a great way to highlight Pittsburgh and Philadelphia artists -- to have a local, regional and international context for all of these exhibits," Domencic says.

With a film and video component weighing heavily in the Pittsburgh Biennial, many feel the exhibition is a perfect complement to the much larger International exhibition, which contains several film and video artworks.

Scott Turri, an artist living in Squirrel Hill, says, "I have a tendency to gravitate toward the film-based work because, often, it is just so different than commercial film. And typically, for me, it is the most interesting of the work at these shows."

Another interesting exhibition planned specifically to complement the 2008 Carnegie International is "Painting in the United States," which opens June 29 at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg.

Known for collecting and exhibiting works of art by significant American artists, the Westmoreland is organizing an exhibit that reconstructs a sampling of the exhibitions of the same title organized by Carnegie Museum of Art from 1943-1949.

Westmoreland Museum curator Barbara Jones says that those annual exhibitions of American painting replaced the Carnegie International while it was suspended due to international trade regulations related to World War II.

Featured in the exhibition will be nearly 50 works by such legendary American artists as Thomas Hart Benton, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, Edward Hopper, Jacob Lawrence, Grandma (Anna Mary Robertson) Moses, John Sloan, Dorothea Tanning and Max Weber. Also included are works by a few artist-faculty members of Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) such as Samuel Rosenberg, Roy Hilton and Everett Warner, who were invited to show works in nearly all of the 1943-49 exhibitions.

"The Westmoreland decided to mount this exhibition purposefully at the same time as the Carnegie International, because it provides the opportunity to look at contemporary art of the present day and what was contemporary art during the 1940s, at a time when the institute made it a point to introduce American art to an American audience," Jones says.

"It is in keeping with our mission to mount an exhibition such as this, and it concentrates on a decade in American art that has essentially been overlooked in favor of Abstract Expressionism." Jones says.

Other exhibitions

So, you think you've seen the Carnegie International's best? Now it's time to seek out the rest. Here is a short list of several related, and not-so-related, art exhibitions up throughout much of the run of "Life on Mars," which closes Jan. 11.

Up now

• "Inner and Outer Space" at the Mattress Factory, North Side. -- Organized by New York curator Dara Meyers-Kingsley, this exhibition features installation artworks by nine contemporary artists from six countries. The installations defy the two-dimensional surfaces of each of the museum's galleries by penetrating the walls and floors, offering new perceptions of "actual" space " rupturing notions of "here" and "now." On view through Jan. 11.

• "Pittsburgh Biennial 08" at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Shadyside, and Pittsburgh Filmmakers, Oakland. -- A contemporary art exhibition featuring works by more than 40 artists from Western Pennsylvania, this exhibition will continue through Aug. 24.

• "Pittsburgh Drawings by Craig McPherson" at Frick Art & Historical Center, Point Breeze. -- Contemporary artist Craig McPherson works in the urban-realist tradition, producing finely detailed, beautifully atmospheric renderings of urban and industrial environments. This exhibition gathers together some of McPherson's existing Pittsburgh-related mezzotints and expands upon these industrial themes with a body of new work in graphite and pastel. On view through June 8.

• "Piet in Pittsburgh" and "Glen Kaino" at The Andy Warhol Museum, North Shore. -- In addition to an ever-changing display of some of The Andy Warhol Museum's permanent collection, this museum presents 24 paintings spanning 1907-37 by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), many of which have never been on view in the United States, as well as seven large-scale installation pieces created from 2000-07 by Los Angeles-born and -based artist Glenn Kaino. Both through Aug. 31.

Coming up

• "Painting in the United States" at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg. -- This exhibition reconstructs a sampling of the exhibitions of the same title organized by Carnegie Museum of Art from 1943-1949. The exhibition will run June 29-Oct. 19.

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