On October 17, the Carnegie Museum of Art will host Nearing Each Other. This is a rare group exhibition of Pittsburgh artists in its street-level Forum gallery, which usually houses a solo show.
Artists selected for Forum programming have often worked closely one-on-one with the museum’s curatorial team to develop a full-room exhibition. They vary vastly in appearance. Marie Watt’s Land Stitches Water Sky had the room entirely white with a sculpture in the center. But Amie Seigel’s Panorama, from earlier in 2024, was a dark room with video footage.
Curatorial Assistant Cynthia Stucki helmed Nearing Each Other, and the exhibition is also a partnership between the museum and Associated Artists of Pittsburgh (AAP). Stucki spoke to TABLE about the process behind curating a group show, how she works with artists, and what she’s excited about in the exhibition.
Carnegie Museum of Art Debuts Group Show Highlighting Pittsburgh Artists
What was it like curating a group show in the Forum Gallery space?
Cynthia Stucki: It’s true that the artistic program in the Forum Gallery highlights solo exhibitions by contemporary artists and supports the production of new work. This often includes in-depth conversations with the artist and a proposal for the gallery that we then help to support.
Group exhibitions require curators to consider the various connecting or disparate relationships, whether formal or conceptual, between multiple artistic practices. This can be challenging. But it is also rewarding to experience how artworks by different artists can expand conversations that they are already having through their work. Also, they can bring about new interpretations when presented together in a gallery.
For Nearing Each Other, I worked in partnership with the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh (AAP). AAP is an arts organization that promotes and supports visual artists in our local region. In curating this group show, I’ve had the incredible opportunity to learn more about local artists and think about moments of connection.
How did you select the six artists for the show?
Cynthia Stucki: When I began researching artists for this exhibition, I wanted to be open and learn about different artistic practices and ideas that are influencing artists in Pittsburgh. I was interested in organizing a show that presents a wide range of media while finding overlapping relationships and paralleling conversations. In this way, Christine CMC Bethea, Matthew Constant, Justin Emmanuel Dumas, Addoley Dzegede, Jamie Earnest, and Bryan Martello are presenting artworks that share in their interpretations of place. They evoke a sense of belonging, and yet are informed by very different visual and material expressions.
Could you talk a little bit about the idea of ephemera and repeated interpretations of place? How does the work in the show speak to that theme?
Cynthia Stucki: The exhibition explores how a memory, a material, and an environment may bridge personal narrative and the experience of place. Bryan Martello, Addoley Dzegede, and Jamie Earnest reveal family histories and childhood experiences. They reference ephemera in their work. Ephemera can be things like a photo album and a home video. The works return to early memories to reimagine these moments in the present.
Matthew Constant, Justin Emmanuel Dumas, and Christine CMC Bethea draw from their relationship to Pittsburgh through their use of found objects. They use resonant materials, and document fleeting moments that engage with experiences of the city and surrounding landscape. With the title, Nearing Each Other, the exhibition invites visitors to reimagine their own complex connections to place as a site of unfolding relationships.
What is one piece or detail you’re most excited about in the show?
This is always a tricky question. I think the most exciting aspect of curating an exhibition is the final presentation! I visit artist studios and see artworks in person or use exhibition design renderings to communicate the feel of the show. But it’s always different experience once all the works are in the exhibition space together.
Story by Emma Riva / Image courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Art
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