Life On Mars, Part One

On the friday after Thanksgiving - the so-called "Black Friday" - we all decided to go to the CARNEGIE MUSEUM to see the 2008 CARNEGIE INTERNATIONAL art exhibition, titled "LIFE ON MARS". Me, Missy, Missy's brother Joe, and Missy's parents, John and Rita, piled into a car and headed out to meet Missy's other brother, Greg, and his wife Christina at their new house. On the way there, we saw this Obama bumper sticker on the back of this van. You know you're no longer in the South when you see Obama bumper stickers written in HEBREW:





The stairs up to the house were a bit icy:





Before splitting everyone up into two cars, we marveled at all the beautiful stained glass windows in the house:









Greg had to fill-up at a gas station before we could head into the city...











I was hoping that everyone would be too busy shopping to even think about going to a museum, but I was wrong...the Carnegie was jam packed! In a way, it was good because the large crowds made it possible for me to sneak a photo every now and then while the docents and security guards were busy minding over other people:





We slowly made our way up to the main portion of the exhibition:



First up was some artwork by MARK BRADFORD:





A painting by Mexican artist Daniel Guzman:



Swiss artist THOMAS HIRSCHHORN installed this humungous multi-roomed man-made cavern, built out of wood and covered entirely in brown packing tape. The inside was decorated like a college dude's dorm room, replete with cheesy posters, shelves full of college textbooks, and soda and beer cans strewn throughout the cave floor. The installation was called "Cavemanman":



I wasn't able to take any good photos in the cave, and of course, the few I did manage to take don't really give you the immense sense of scale involved in the piece:



An installation by MIKE KELLEY, depicting various models of Superman's home city of Kandor, on the planet Krypton:



This painting was part of a different exhibition running concurrently with the Life On Mars one...I'm sorry that I don't know who the artist is:



I was really eager to see works by Scottish artist DAVID SHRIGLEY. We found one little room showcasing some of his work. I love the absurdity and dark humor:





In an adjacent room were all these miniature dollhouse scenes that Missy's mom enjoyed very much:



Another David Shrigley piece hanging at the end of a hallway:



A video installation by Thai artist APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL:



We crossed over into some rooms that displayed some of the Carnegie's permanent collection:













We made our way back down to the lobby area where more parts of the "Life On Mars" exhibit were presented: