Carnegie Museum of Art has a new podcast! The joint project with WQED-FM, called Artists in the World, features conversations between artists and their contemporaries. Co-hosted by the museum’s director of education and public programs, Dana Bishop-Root, and WQED-FM artistic director Jim Cunningham, it offers conversations, artist talks, readings, and performances hosted by the museum. The first episode, which premiered in October, features poet Solmaz Sharif and writer Negar Azimi, and explores the topics of finding home in exile and the restlessness of language. New episodes will go out every few weeks and are available on the Museum of Art’s website and wherever you listen to podcasts.
A new Avian Research Haven for Powdermill
The Richard P. Mellon Avian Research Center has officially opened at Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Powdermill Nature Reserve. The 2,859-square-foot state-of-the-art research facility will allow up to 10 researchers to spend longer days on-site when projects call for it. It will also host educational demonstrations, trainings, and visiting researchers. Supported with a $1 million grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation, the center’s name was announced during a grand opening celebration on September 30.
“He was almost never seen without his wig, and he looks so frail and vulnerable without the wig. And that’s how he must have felt without it. It was a little bit like armor for him.”
– Patrick Moore, director of The Andy Warhol Museum, discussing the wigs found in Andy Warhol’s time capsules on NPR’s Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! Podcast
Andy Warhol, Self-Portrait, 1986, The Andy Warhol Museum © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
A Tribute to Julia Warhola
An artistic tribute to the life and artistic practice of Andy Warhol’s mother, Julia Warhola, is now gracing the exterior of The Andy Warhol Museum. The 10-foot-by-15-foot artwork, titled Julia, is a mosaic of porcelain clay, glaze, slip, and luster created by Pittsburgh-based artist Laura Jean McLaughlin. The mosaic portrays a likeness of Julia and her whimsical drawings of cats, angels, stars, and flowers. McLaughlin says that Julia Warhola’s life and artwork inspired her “because of her beautiful line-work, ability to simplify imagery and convey personality in her subjects.” The mural is located on the back side of the museum facing Vulcan Way.
Mars Comes to Pittsburgh
The red planet has come to Carnegie Science Center. The most ambitious permanent exhibition installed at the Science Center since 1991, Mars: The Next Giant Leap opened on November 19. The 7,400-square-foot exhibition transports visitors to Mars and considers larger questions around how sustainability, climate change, social justice, and equitable access to resources can impact the future of human beings on Mars and on Earth. Through immersive and “democratic” exhibits designed to engage people of all ages, visitors can traverse a Martian garden where settlers grow their food, use remote-controlled rovers to search the terrain for evidence of water, and much more!
