Pittsburgh, PA

The Carnegie Museum presents a new exhibit, “Life on Mars,” which asks some difficult questions, while remaining a thoughtful and entertaining discussion. The exhibit debuted May 3rd and will run until January 11th, 2009. Here is some information on the exhibit straight from the blog the exhibit has been maintaining:

Life on Mars, the 2008 Carnegie International, explores the important, yet continually perplexing, question of what it means to be human in the world today. Each artist brings a unique outlook to the question of humanity’s response to a world in which global events challenge and seem to threaten our everyday existence. Included in the exhibition will be some 200 works in diverse media, from painting, sculpture, and drawing to animation, film, installation, and performance.

“For the first time in 112 years the exhibition has a title other than Carnegie International,” said Fogle. “Life on Mars is very much a poetic gesture in terms of thinking about our place in the universe as humans. Are we alone in the universe? Do aliens exist? Or are we, ourselves, the strangers in our own worlds? To me contemporary art is as much about coming to terms with our own world as it is about creating a set of worlds parallel to those that we walk in everyday. The thematic premise behind the show has to do with the idea of the intimate moments in our daily life that we miss by walking through our worlds and not seeing what is right in front of us. It also has to do with the more infinite sense of being part of the larger universe and finding ourselves on the inside and looking out. All of the artists participating in the 2008 Carnegie International have been chosen because their work conveys this sensibility.”

The exhibit features the work of 40 artists representing 17 countries all with their own interpretation of the world we live in today.

The Carnegie Museum is located at 4400 Forbes Avenue in Oakland.

Visit the exhibit’s website to learn more about times, ticket prices and artists involved in the show.

I hope everyone enjoyed their weekends and enjoyed some of the events I posted last week.

Pittsburgh, Carnegie Museum, Life on Mars, art, global, awareness, Oakland

Phipps Conservatory’s May Market is this weekend!

Shop for various garden plants and gardening tools, as well special green items, like eco-pots made from recycled grain husks. There will also be local experts on hand to answer all of your gardening questions and a special presentation by nationally syndicated gardening expert, Joe Lamp’l. If you are interested in listening to Lamp’l speak, you should rsvp for the talk by calling 412-441-4442 x 3803. There is no charge for the presentation or any other event taking place at the May Market.

The event takes place all weekend at Phipps Garden Center:

May 16th: 10am-7pm with local experts Q and A from noon-4pm
May 17th: 10am-7pm with Joe Lamp’l from 10:30-11:30 am and special presentation at 12:30
May 18th: 10am-5pm

Phipps Garden Center is located at 1059 Shady Avenue in Oakland. For more information, visit their website here.

Also going on this weekend is the 52nd annual Pittsburgh Folk Festival!

Join in on a multi-cultural celebration this weekend at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. There will be more than 30 nationalities represented in the form of ethnic entertainment, food, shopping and more.

Festival hours are as follows:
Friday: 4pm-10pm
Saturday: 12-10pm
Sunday: 12-6pm

Tickets purchased in advance are $8 for adults (13 and over), children (4-12) and free for children under 4. Tickets purchased at the door cost an extra $2 for adults only.

Check out the Folk Festival’s website for more info on performance times, parking and contact information.

And if you can still find the time, don’t forget to check out my previous post listing Saturday’s local events.

Pittsburgh, Phipps Garden Center, May Market, gardening, Folk Festival, David L. Lawrence Convention Center

For those of you not local to or frequent visitors of Oakland, now is your chance to further explore this great little area of Pittsburgh.

This Saturday come out to experience A Taste of Oakland; for only $5 you can tour more than 20 businesses, as well as sample local food and refreshments.

Participating restaurants include Dave and Andy’s, Hemingway’s, Mad Mex, Spice Cafe, Starbucks and more! There is also free parking at the UPMC lot on Meyran, free entry into the Carnegie Museum and free carousel rides in Schenley Plaza. You can also receive $5 off any performance of Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre’s production of an Ideal Husband or Wilde Tales.

The event takes place from 12-3pm Saturday and tickets can be purchased that day at Eureka Bank at 3455 Forbes and the Public Parklet at the corner of Forbes and S. Bouquet.

For more information, visit Only in Oakland’s website here.

Also on Saturday is the Good vs. Evil photography show at the Creative Treehouse.

The photography show will feature the work of local photographers each depicting one end of the broad spectrum of good and evil representations. There will photos for sale, as well as food and entertainment all for $5. The show is 18+ due to subject matter and will be hosted at the Creative Treehouse in Bellevue.

For more information on the photography show, please visit the Treehouse’s website here.

And if you can still find the time, don’t forget to check out the Silk Screen Film Festival. Details can be viewed in my previous post here.

Pittsburgh, Oakland, Carnegie Museum, Bellevue, Creative Treehouse, photography, music

The Silk Screen Film Festival is back in Pittsburgh from May 9th through the 18th. The festival showcases the cinematic achievements of filmmakers from all over the world, exploring the depths of the Asian-American experience.

The films will be shown at the Harris Theater, Melwood Screening Room, Regent Square Theater and at the Warhol. A complete film schedule can be found here, but I’d like to highlight a couple I think would be interesting.

Getting Home: Based on a true story. In Zhang Yang’s quasi-philosophical road comedy, working-class stiff Zhao (the famous Chinese comedian Zhao Benshan) is shocked when his drinking buddy and co-worker drops dead during a routine night out. Zhoa owes it to his long-time friend to transport his corpse to its final resting place. Director Zhang Yang also made the critically acclaimed Shower.

Tie a Yellow Ribbon: In her first feature film, director Joy Deitrich paints a nuanced portrait of a female Korean adoptee who must confront her damaged past. Estranged from her family due to a childhood indiscretion with her white brother, Jenny Mason seeks to regain a sense of home by exploring ties with the Asian Americans she meets in her new apartment building, until suddenly, her brother shows up at the door, stirring up long lost feelings that she has tried to bury.

Ploy: Director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s psychological drama wherein three strangers are locked inside one hotel room. It starts with subtle suspicions and builds up to jealousy, as the appearance of a young woman triggers devastating consequences for a married couple.

In addition to providing thoughtful and memorable films to the Pittsburgh region, Silk Screen also has these goals in mind:

* Educate communities – Asian American and mainstream, local and national - about Asian and Asian American history, culture, experiences and issues;
* Bring Asian cultural education experiences to area schools and universities;
* Support ongoing development of Asian and Asian American independent cinema;
* Foster understanding across lines of race, ethnicity, religion, age, and region by bringing together the various Asian communities and the population at large within the Pittsburgh region;
* Sustain growth and encourage excellence in Asian American culture and Pittsburgh’s place within it. As the Festival grows, to become a full celebration of Asian heritage, build a more dynamic and multicultural community, and make Silk Screen a traveling event across the Commonwealth.

Neat!

For more information on showtimes, ticket prices, etc visit Silk Screen’s website here.

Don’t forget to visit Zombo Gallery this weekend to check out Ian Green’s exhibition!

Pittsburgh, Silk Screen, Asian American, film, festival

The latest Zombo Gallery show opened this past Friday, so I’m sorry I didn’t mention it earlier. It involves the artistic talent of Ian Green, a Pittsburgh native.

Who is Ian Green and why you have to see his art.

Ian Green was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. As a kid, he played mostly in the woods that edged Carrick. This was the 70’s and no one talked about green space, so the woods back when were basically considered a dumping ground for many and most roads that ended there were punctuated by many a lazy slob’s garbage. For a parent, this was surely a safety concern, but for little Ian, it was awesome! A seemingly endless supply of discarded and fading plastics, gems of broken glass, rusted metal and peeling painted wood mixed with lush vegetation and weeds offered forms and colors and textures that no clean playground could. Ian was into it.

Every so often, his family would go up to Mars, PA. to visit John and Louise Fox. John was a painter and antique dealer. Their warehouse was dark and ominous and filled to the rafters with John’s work and antique items ranging from nearly worthless to rare and exquisite – all
accompanied with a layer of dust the thickness of which bespoke either their newness or neglect. Wandering through this strange interior garden excited Ian the same way the junk did back home in the woods. He was hooked.

Skip ahead past the BFA from CCAD, the MFA in Painting from IU in Bloomington, and hit play in Pittsburgh 2000. Ian gets a studio in Homestead (where he is still working) but the world is very different now. He looks at people talking into their cell phones and they seem like plain-clothes extras rehearsing for a Star Trek episode, so he paints a broken branch in a dirty window with the light filtering through the dying leaves. Skip a little pass 911 to the ever-present terror we’re supposed to be feeling thanks to Fox News. No thanks – so Ian joins the Zany Umbrella Circus as an antidote to helplessness.

Now people talk to their invisible friends via little Borg attachments. Loud one-sided arguments from pissed off strangers drift up from the bus stop below his studio. Ian sees the billboards getting bigger and brighter and the people getting smaller and smaller and he’s seeing a lot more security cameras everywhere and yet people seem more afraid than ever. Pieces like “MacSanto’s Pizzarena”, and “Dave –n – Strikebusters” and “BINKY FON” stem from a growing suspicion—that our present humanity is sliding uneasily into a trap set for the future. This is what Ian calls “The Time of PIL”. Where good credit equals no worries and the billboards read you.

Closing Reception Friday May 23rd at 6pm
Gallery Hours.. Fridays from 5:00-7:30 and Saturdays Noon - 4pm
other times ..call 412-904-3703 appointments.

Zombo Gallery is located at 4900 Hatfield Street in Lawrenceville. Besides being an art gallery, Zombo sells custom t-shirts, dvds and cds, as well as recorded air checks of Zombo’s Record Show, heard on 88.3 FM. Definitely a neat place to check out!

If you can’t make it out to the gallery this weekend, you might want to practice your photography skills so you can submit work to the Good vs. Evil photography show that is going to be held May 17th at the Creative Treehouse in Bellevue. For more information, visit my previous post on the event here.

Pittsburgh, Zombo Gallery, Ian Green, art, Lawrenceville