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Every three or four years, Cleveland's most fervent art lovers make the two- hour trek to Pittsburgh to indulge in the region's best survey of work by international contemporary art stars. The Carnegie International opened on October 9 and remains on view through March 20, so there is still plenty of time to make the pilgrimage. And, while this year's International is not as stunning as the 1999-2000 iteration, it is definitely worth the trip, as the exhibition features more than 400 works by 38 artists from around the world.
A curatorial objective of the Carnegie International is to identify currents within the international art community — ultimately, to recognize the artistic zeitgeist of an era. In the exhibition brochure, the curator notes that the artists in the 54th International have “embarked on the…difficult task of choosing art as a meaningful vehicle through which to confront pressing but unanswerable questions about the nature of life and death, the existence of God, and the anatomy of belief.” The most compelling works in the show patently explore these concepts; in some cases, they exude a palpable aura of spirituality and/or existentialism.
As is often the case with the Carnegie International, many of the most memorable works involve the clever, innovative use of film or video. Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook's (born in Trad, Thailand) Reading Inaow for Female Corpse is a disturbingly moving installation that includes a single chair facing a video projection of the artist reading Inaow (an ancient Thai text on female desire) to a decomposing female corpse.
The dead woman had no relatives to perform traditional funerary rites, and Rasdjarmrearnsook views art as a vehicle to carry out these rituals. However, the artist does not view the video as a work of art. Instead, the artist becomes a sage mustering a creative mysticism to help the friendless woman move from life to death.
Rasdjarmrearnsook's melodic reading of the text is mesmerizing and comforting; it brilliantly contrasts with the gruesome, decomposing body. The woman's face and the trunk of her body are covered with a thin white sheet, and there are places where the fabric is adhered to her seeping skin. The camera zooms in to expose bodily fluids oozing from the woman's bare, thin legs and bluish feet. The juxtaposition of the repulsive body with a text on female desire underscores the transience of the corporal. Rasdjarmrearnsook forces individual viewers to contemplate death by making them a part of her ceremony, as there is only one chair in the dark installation. Alone, faced with the decaying female body amidst the artist's ritual, the viewer comes to the realization that despite our earthly rites, we all ultimately experience death alone.
On a lighter, more secular note, are the works of Robert Crumb (born in Philadelphia). Crumb, who has produced a seemingly endless stream of comic illustrations and drawings over the past 40 years, is the master of the mundane. Yet, like his onetime collaborator, Clevelander Harvey Pekar, Crumb extricates profound human truths from everyday situations. This is especially evident when one experiences a vast array of the artist's work in one setting — the base sexuality, the blatant stereotypes, and the insipid complexities of the American family are played out in black and white on Crumb's sketchpad. A page from Whiteman Meets Bigfoot from Home Grown Funnies (no. 1, 1971) depicts a family “experiencing” the outdoors in their mammoth recreational vehicle. The parents of two children — a boy and a girl — chide their youngsters for wanting to watch television instead of joining them on a hike in the “wilderness” of the campground. On the surface, there is the obvious irony of the scene — the parents are angry that their kids are behaving the same way they do at home even though their behemoth RV replicates the conveniences of their suburban life. But beyond this one-liner, Crumb explores whiteness, identifying “white” as a distinct racial category long before white critical theorists such as Richard Dyer, Vron Ware and David Roediger's works were published. In fact, much of Crumb's work humorously — and very trenchantly — examines the fetishes, fears and prejudices of white men.
Ugo Rondinone's (Brunnen, Switzerland) ambiguously entrancing video installation, Roundelay, incorporates six video screens in the round depicting a white man and woman separately walking. The six video projections transform the space into a disorienting sensory experience, as various perspectives are presented, including close-ups of the lanky woman's profile, full body shots of the man in stride, and views of the sidewalks, buildings and city streets. The varied angles make the viewer both observer and participant in a simulated stroll through an anonymous urban environment. As viewers watch and wander along the virtual path, they become privy to a futile journey through a sterile, barren modern landscape.
There are works in the International that are stunning due to the artists' ingenious use of materials. Eva Rothschild's (born Dublin, Ireland) Disappear is a three-dimensional asterisk or starburst that — from a distance — appears to be made of a durable and polished substance. However, upon closer scrutiny, the object's fragility is revealed; it is made of incense, an ephemeral material. Senga Nengudi's (born Chicago) animated sculptures — a series titled R.S.V.P. — made of stuffed and stretched pantyhose and multicolored tights, activate the gallery space and cleverly reference the body. Like Rasdjarmrearnsook, Nengudi is concerned with the transience of the corporal. Yet Nengudi's engagement with performance and installation art is evident as the tights, which are stretched, stuffed and woven into fantastical anthropomorphic forms, engage viewers in an enchanting, interactive dance. The installation is about the joy of absence; the artist, who is not present in the performance, nevertheless incites the dance.
Not all of the works in the International are so brilliantly magical. Two installations by Jim Lambie (born Glasglow, Scotland) are categorically abysmal. It is difficult to imagine that Bleached Highlights, a wall piece consisting of garishly colored shoes attached to variously shaped mirrors, would get a passing grade in an undergraduate sculpture course. Equally disappointing, and even more puerile, is a series of photographs by Philip-Lorca diCorcia (born Hartford, Connecticut) depicting erotic pole dancers. The exhibition brochure describes the artist's images as “enigmatic.” There is nothing mysterious, baffling or peculiar about a man gazing at scantily clad strippers. Moreover, the suggestion that “the dancers were not performing for an audience but rather for a photographer's camera” implies that the camera was operating by itself, which is certainly not the case. There is nothing at all original about diCorcia's photographs. If anything, they are theoretically regressive and demonstrate the artist's ignorance of early-1980s theory on subjectivity and the male gaze.
Overall, when the work in this International is good, it is very, very good. Likewise, when it is bad, it is horrendous. In art, as in life, exploring the inscrutabilities of life and death is usually a messy endeavor. Yet, despite the chaos, it's definitely worth the ride.