Q&A with Carnegie Int'l curator Douglas Fogle, part two

Continuing from this morning with 2008 Carnegie International curator Douglas Fogle...[Photo at left: Thomas Hirschhorn waiting to happen.]

MAN: So did artists understand your theme, the 'Life on Mars' idea, or did you get some strange looks?

Douglas Fogle: When I mentioned David Bowie, 90 percent of the people laughed, got it, and said, 'Oh my God, I love it.' No one has not liked it actually. A lot of the people who are really into music loved it, they all get it.

I think the best contemporary art takes us to other worlds. It's not a show about extra terrestrials, it's a metaphor. When I discuss the idea around Pittsburgh I have to be extra-clear because the Carnegie has a science center. I always say that the theme was just an interesting way of hooking on to some ideas that could form a bit of structure for the exhibit.

MAN: It's one of those '-ennial' years in America: You and the Carnegie, the Whitney, Lance Fung is doing a show in Santa Fe, Dan Cameron in New Orleans. Given that biennials are whatever they are now, did you feel any need or impetus to re-examine what a biennial was, to re-create?

DF: No, I didn't. The Carnegie International is really different. It has its own character. It's comes along only every 3-4 years, so it's not Documenta, but it's not like the Venice Biennial either. It's also the oldest one other than Venice, and Venice has the Carnegie by only six months. It has a legacy. It's never more than 40 artists. It's a third as many artists as I had in my group shows at the Walker, so each artist gets more room. I feel like the show, because of the ideas behind it, because of how I did the show: It's an exhibition, it's not a survey. [Photo: Pre-Barry McGee.]

It's also like Munster and those kinds of places in the sense that it's very much a show for the city of Pittsburgh and people here get very excited. It's such a part of the history and the legacy of the institution. It was set up as a way for the institution as a way to collect -- that's how they wanted to build the collection, so there are always works bought out of the show and always work by artists you bring in before the show by artists you want to invite.

I don't have anxiety about the form of the biennial, if you want to call it that, because [the CI] doesn't feel like that to me. It feels like a big group show we'd have done at the Walker.

MAN: How is it very much a show for Pittsburgh? How is the city a part of the project?

DF: I'm on the circuit here. The assistant curator on the project and I are out all the time. We do stuff over at Carnegie Mellon University and at the University of Pittsburgh. And not just about the show, but interacting and doing crits. We're trying to make ourselves part of the community because we are and we love it. I do as many studio visits as I can. I go give talks leading up to the CI around town and try to get people excited. We have had a series of great pieces on the local NPR station.

MAN: Do you know what you're doing next yet? Aren't CI curators expected to leave when the show does?

DF: No, there's no booting out the door. It's more de facto than any kind of written code. People do the show and then people call them. I have no future. Starbucks is always hiring.