Film Diary: Is It Morning for You Yet?
The Hall of Sculpture is undoubtedly my favorite room in the Carnegie Museum of Art. Inspired by the Parthenon, its bright white marble, lifelike sculptures, and massive skylight always provide what feels like a creative breath of fresh air when I find myself in their presence. Naturally, I was eager to visit this room during the 58th Carnegie International, where it was home to some incredible art.
During the exhibition, titled Is it morning for you yet?, the Hall of Sculpture houses two large and captivating bodies of work: right?, a golden balloon installation by Turkish artist Banu Cennetoğlu, and Colors of Grey, a series of soft, colorful frescoes by French-Vietnamese artist Thu Van Tran. Paired with the existing art and architecture in the room, they give the space this sort of dreamlike, Everything-Everywhere-All-at-Once energy.
right?
In her installation, Banu Cennetoğlu (b. 1970, Ankara, Turkey) spells out the first ten articles of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights — published by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 — in large gold balloons. The balloons are inherently designed to slowly deflate and wilt, suggesting the contrast between these rights in application versus their original intended design. For context, Is it morning for you yet? opened on September 24, 2022, at which point the balloons were fully inflated, and these photos are from my visit to the exhibit on February 18, 2023.
“It’s an inviting piece, I must say that. It looks like it’s all joyful and beautiful and golden…but I’m also very curious and interested what will happen in the coming months when they start to deflate and get wrinkled, because I think it’s going to be another encounter.”
-Banu Cennetoğlu
Colors of Grey
The Hall is also home to a series of abstract, iridescent frescoes created by Thu Van Tran (b. 1979, Ho Chi Minh City). Using a systematic application of layers of white, pink, blue, green, purple, and orange, Colors of Grey represents the toxic “Rainbow of Herbicides” used by the US military during the Vietnam War. Her work gives a voice to the past and also questions the way in which we remember it.
“I envision my work in the Hall of Sculpture as a formal, lyrical, and symbolic hold on the site. I will ‘stain’ the site with a signifier, with a past history, but also permeate it with an aesthetic experience.”
-Thu Van Tran
Is it morning for you yet? runs from September 24, 2022 - April 2, 2023 at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, PA. To learn more about Banu Cennetoğlu, Thu Van Tran, and the 58th Carnegie International, click here.
