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When industrialist Andrew Carnegie began a series of contemporary art exhibitions in 1896 with the intention, in Carnegie's own words, to present an exhibition "for the masses of the people primarily, not for the educated few" he had no idea what kind of iterations were to come of the series that has grown into North America's pre-eminent showcase of international contemporary art.

Today, despite a more cognoscenti-appealing approach that had become of the series in recent years, Carnegie's intention seems to have come full circle with the 54th Carnegie International, which opens Saturday. After all, how else, would one explain an exhibition that includes among all things a 40-foot mural inspired by Japanese cartoons, a "garden of love," funky ceramics and dozens upon dozens of comic strips and illustrated stories by underground comics giant Robert Crumb?

Safe to say, it more than likely will appeal to the masses of the people in one way or another.

But even with such across-the-board inclusions, Laura Hoptman, curator of contemporary art at Carnegie Museum of Art and curator of the exhibition, insists, "Like it always has, this exhibition will give Pittsburgh a really good snapshot of some of the art that's been going on all over the world over the past three years."

All told, the 42-year-old curator traveled to 17 countries in that span of time looking for the best the international art world had to offer. Now, nearly 500 works by 38 artists fill almost the entirety of the Carnegie Museum of Art, from the back stairway to the furthest reaches of the spacious, newly renovated Scaife Galleries.

"This exhibition has a kind of flow," Hoptman says. "Kind of a story, if you will."

That story is based on "the ultimates," Hoptman says -- those universal philosophical questions that have been asked of the sages for centuries, such as "What is evil?" and "What happens after death?"

The story begins with the ultimate question of "What is love?" on the Scaife steps near the rear of the museum. That's where, dead center on one landing, visitors will find Belgium-born artist Carsten Holler's installation piece, "Garden of Love," which is a greenhouse full of a particular kind of flowering plant. "It's called the solandra maxima," Hoptman says of the plant sometimes called "chalice vine," "and one of its qualities is that when it flowers it exudes a pheromone that creates amorous feelings."

From there, visitors are expected to move through the Heinz Galleries at the top of the stairs, through the Hall of Sculpture and finally, back through the Scaife Galleries in a kind of sensible course that makes use of similar, somewhat grouped themes.

For example, in the Heinz Galleries, visitors will be confronted with the most socially conscious works. First is "Kuba," which is a massive installation piece by Turkish-born artist Kutlug Ataman. Taking up nearly the entirety of the first gallery, it is made up of 40 television sets which feature video of 40 inhabitants of Kuba, a tiny shantytown on outskirts of Istanbul where the artist lives, telling their personal tales of tragedy.

Next, the exhibition moves into even more socially conscious terrain with the paintings of Swedish artist Karin "Mamma" Andersson and East German artist Neo Rauch, who both have a certain way of mixing history with metaphor in large-scale paintings to dramatic effect. The overwhelmingly satirical works of the American-born comics artist Robert Crumb, now living in France, create similar drama through cartoon stories that attack a variety of contemporary issues, social and otherwise.

"These are artists that I think of in my head as reporters, in a sense journalists," Hoptman says. "In a certain way, they take as their grand subject, daily life the things that surround us. They don't just report on what's around us, but rather respect it in a certain way, transform it and make it into something larger and more important than us."

In this way, Hoptman says Crumb is the perfect example of an artist who ponders the ultimates. "Robert is in the exhibition because he is a great artist, but also because he is one of the great chroniclers of human foibles and frailties, and morals and mores."

One gallery is almost entirely dedicated to his work and features numerous original drawings, comics pages and sketchbooks that range from one of his earliest works, a comic series featuring "Fritz the Cat" that Crumb drew inside a composition notebook in 1962 when he worked for American Greetings, to his more controversial works such as "Frosty the Snowman and His Friends" from 1975 as well as several more examples of more recent works from the 1980s and '90s.

Aside from such highlights -- not to mention the unusually anthropomorphic ceramic vessels by Kathy Butterly of San Francisco, the first ceramicist to ever be included in an International -- the works in the Heinz Galleries culminate with a large-scale video work by Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone.

"Roundelay" features six huge projections of a 30-something man and woman walking through the vacant streets and subways of Paris in the middle of the night. On display in a round, angular room, which in itself is a sculpture designed by the artist, the perfectly timed projections are accompanied by a hypnotic soundtrack created by composer Philip Glass, making it one of the more resonant works in the show in more ways than one.

"This is the city as a modern artwork, a modern sculpture or a modern painting," Hoptman says.

Walking through the Hall of Sculpture, visitors will find life-size photographs of strippers by American artist Philip-Lorca DiCorcia in the balcony above the unusual "manifesto" drawings of Croatian artist Dimitrije Basicevic (Mangelos), the only deceased artist represented in the show. And at the bottom of the Grand Staircase, in the front of the museum, visitors will find a large sand painting created by American artist Senga Nengudi that fills the floor, making it appear as if the museum has emerged from the depths of history.

Earlier works by Nengudi also are featured in the Scaife Galleries where, above all things, many of the works relate to the ultimate questions about death, faith and the afterlife, such as a video in which Thai artist Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook sings to a corpse; photographs that document a Virgin Mary sighting in Perth Amboy, N.J., by American artist Rachel Harrison; and a life-size effigy sculpture of JFK in a coffin by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan.

"There are some very beautiful and, in a certain sense, calm and easy works, but it should surprise no one that we have a certain kind of turbulence in the contemporary art discourse like we do everywhere else in our world, domestically and also internationally," Laura Hoptman says in defense of these more shocking works.

Looking back on the completion of a job well done, Hoptman says of the show overall, "I think that it captures the moment -- the times that we are living through."

Considering "the ultimates" proffered in this exhibition, that might just be true.

Related programs

'Getting a Grip on the 2004-5 Carnegie International'

How does a curator charged with bringing the best in contemporary art to Pittsburgh resolve the challenges of selecting work by 38 artists from 17 countries, in all manner of contemporary media, in a way that communicates to museum visitors something about our world? Laura Hoptman, curator of the 2004-05 Carnegie International, has centered her exhibition around the work of three key artists: Robert Crumb, Lee Bontecou and Mangelos. Join Vicky A. Clark, scholar and independent curator of contemporary art, for this three-part course that will focus on the ideas and the work of one of these influential figures each week. Clark will examine their influence on other artists in the exhibition and elucidate their role in confronting our cultural moment.

When: 1:30 to 3 or 6 to 7:30 p.m. Friday and Tuesday.

Admission: $48 for members; $56 for nonmembers

Where: Carnegie Museum of Art Theater.

'The Cartoonist Sketchbook'

Robert Crumb is almost as famous for his unbridled and inventive sketchbooks as he is for his published "Underground Comix." Join professional cartoonist Don Simpson in examining your own cartoonist's sketchbook as a resource for raw ideas, personal studies and unedited explorations of your imagination. Materials and methods for sketching as well as finished cartoon art will be discussed and demonstrated, and students will select their best sketchbook ideas to develop a finished cartoon, illustration, or comic strip. Gallery visits to look closely at Crumb's work in the 2004-5 Carnegie International are included.

When: Six sessions, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Oct. 16 through Nov. 20.

Admission: $66 for members; $80 for nonmembers.

Where: Studio 4.

Related Lectures

Free with museum admission

Curator's Lecture: Laura Hoptman
6 p.m. Oct. 15.
Carnegie Museum of Art, Lecture Hall

Artist's Lecture: Julie Mehretu
5 p.m. Oct. 21
Carnegie Mellon University, McConomy Auditorium

Artist's Lecture: Senga Nengudi
5 p.m. Oct. 28.
Carnegie Mellon University, McConomy Auditorium

Artist's Dialogue: Senga Nengudi with Filmmaker Linda Goode Bryant
2 p.m. Oct. 30.
Carnegie Museum of Art, Lecture Hall

Artist's Lecture: Trisha Donnelly
5 p.m. Nov. 11.
Carnegie Mellon University, McConomy Auditorium

Lecture: Elizabeth Smith, the James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, on Lee Bontecou
2 p.m. Nov. 13.
Carnegie Museum of Art, Lecture Hall

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