Martian Life

Barry McGee Untitled



Katja Strunz


Thomas Hirschorn Cavemanman

David Shrigley

Haegue Yang


Fischli/Weiss

Apichatpong Weerasethakul Unknown Forces

Noguchi Rika

Mike Kelley Kandor

And a bit of the miniatures collection...


I am lucky enough to visit Pittsburgh while the Carnegie International (the second oldest international in the world) was on. This one was curated by Douglas Fogle and is called Life on Mars and poses such questions as:

Are we alone in the universe? Do aliens exist? Or are we, ourselves, the strangers in our own worlds?

Claudia is also lucky enough to be writing a thesis on this particular exhibition. So really, she should be writing this blog entry. As she is sitting next to me (writing said thesis) she muses:

"I guess it's about not recognising the reflection of ourselves...having something projected back at you and not understanding it as yourself, when it really is. Confronting ourselves with a reality that is less than ideal and maybe unrecognisable to what we think we are. Holding a mirror up to ourselves and presenting us with a reflection that we may not recognise but is a truer representation of ourselves than we may wish to acknowledge."

So the exhibition explores the notion of the spectacle (fantasy vs reality), the flaws of being human as well as how and what it is to be human in the world today with each artist giving individual takes on the human condition.

But did this exhibition really get me going on whether or not I recognise my own reflection? I guess I was more interested in the fact that I finally got to see Shrigley, Kelley, Fischli/Weiss and Tillmans, and all under one Carnegie roof!

With that being said, the Shrigley sculptures weren't really his best (big ups on the kitty cat though, if you can't tell, us paintandbakers love our cats) and perhaps even some of his drawings could have been just as relevant to the 'strangers in our own world' theme than the sculptures. Was an odd choice to say the least. 

But very impressed with the Kandor installation. The whirlpool/tornado projections were excellent in conjunction with the sculpture. But alas, it was rather annoying not being able to get close enough to see the sculptures properly as they were roped off (a problem encountered again with the Fischli/Weiss installation). Why oh why must they restrict our viewing pleasure?? Can they not see that I am an over enthusiastic art student that just wants to get as close as possible, close enough to smell the polyurethaned goodness...ropes are not my friend!

New favourite artist alert:

- Apichatpong Weerasethakul's video installation, complete with NEON! And i mean, colourful dancing neon. Such beautiful, new pants neon...

- Noguchi Rika's strange dream-like pinhole photos

Other notes:

- Thomas Hirschorn's cardboard installation which puts anyone else's cardboard attempts to shame. Claud and I did some serious chillin' in this cave.

- The regret I felt not being able to experience Kai Althoff's installation because someone perhaps deemed it too dangerous to continue (it had a viscose pesticide running through it). It now sits without the gooey substance, empty and void, unignited and unactivated. 

It was a challenging exhibition. Still unravelling itself to me as I think about it now. If it weren't so darn expensive to go see ($11USD for a 'student' free for a CMU-ers) then I would definately go again. Perhaps I can wrangle a student ID off some poor unsuspecting Carnegie student...

But it is also a very suitable exhibition for me at the moment. As a person pondering my 'alien' status in another country, how could I not relate? As Fogle says, this exhibition is about the 'alien inside of us'. 

How fitting.

- Agnes

p.s. How I needed one of these whilst visiting this show! I had to resort back to the cybershot, taking pictures from my bag while scary gallery attendants were not watching...the things I do...