Carnegie Exhibit Explores Mood, Space

The exhibit runs through November 12.

by Staff -- Interior Design, 8/18/2006

“Forum 57: Luisa Lambri and Ernesto Neto,” at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, has brought together the works of two seemingly divergent artists. While their media and presentations are indeed quite different, Italian photographer Lambri and Brazilian sculptor Neto both “explore the possibilities of minimal forms in space,” according to the museum. Now, their works are featured side-by-side in the 57th Forum Gallery exhibition, which runs through November 12.

Lambri's photography investigates the relationship “between subjective experience and architectural space,” but her images of well-known architectural structures don’t tout them as icons. Instead, she focuses on the idiosyncratic aspects of her interiors, and in doing so, creates a feeling of personal experience. Meanwhile, Neto’s biomorphic sculptural environments explore the corporeal, sensual, and tactile possibilities of sculpture through translucent fabric forms. Often, these are anchored by bundles of aromatic herbs and spices. Both rely on a certain moodiness to create a relationship between the viewer and the object.

"It might seem odd to bring together two artists working in such divergent media," says Douglas Fogle, Carnegie Museum of Art's Curator of Contemporary Art. “However, both artists share a near obsession with the subjective, phenomenological experience of space and our own perceptual relationships with the world at large."

The exhibition includes a series of Lambri’s photographs of the home of Mexican architect Luis Barragán, as well as four photographs devoted to the designs of Brazilian architect and Pritzker Prize winner Oscar Niemeyer. Neto's “Okitimanaia Ogu,” (2000), which was purchased by the museum in 2001 and is on now on display there for the first time, is a room-size, suspended sculptural form that features bulbous appendages weighted down by large quantities of pungent turmeric, clove, and annatto.

Luisa Lambri's "Untitled (Barragan House, #20)," 2005, laserchrome print, Carnegie Museum of Art, A.W. Mellon Acquisition Endowment Fund; copyright Barragán Foundation, Switzerland

Ernesto Neto's "Okitimanaia Ogu" (detail), 2000, Carnegie Museum of Art, A.W. Mellon Acquisition Endowment Fund, courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York.