Animal Nature

Aug 26 - Oct 2, 2005

Steve Baker + Edwina Ashton
Catherine Chalmers
Jim Duesing + Jessica Hodgins
Lane Hall + Lisa Moline
Andrew Johnson
Eduardo Kac
Dorian Kolundzija
Lyne Lapointe
Per Maning
Michael Pestel
Angela Singer
Olly & Suzi
Steve Wilson

Regina Gouger Miller Gallery
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

www.cmu.edu/millergallery

Aug 26 - Oct 2, 2005

Since January 2000, the Miller Gallery has sought to support the creation, growth, and understanding of contemporary art through exhibitions, projects, events and publications. A non-collecting facility located in the Purnell Center for the Arts on the main campus of Carnegie Mellon, the Gallery is named for Regina Gouger Miller, alumna of the School of Art, avid art collector, and generous principal donor. The 9,000 square foot space functions less as a showroom for art, than one for experimentation, examination, discovery and discussion. The gallery aspires to engage diverse audiences, as well as to stimulate, provoke and encourage contemplation of the visual arts of our times.

For more information, contact:
Jenny Strayer, Gallery Director, 412 268 3877
Eric C. Sloss, Media Relations, College of Fine Arts, 412 268 5765

Gallery Phone: 412 268 3618
Fax: 412 268 4746

Gallery Hours:
Tuesday–Sunday 11:30am-5:00pm

PITTSBURGH:  The Regina Gouger Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon is pleased to announce the exhibition Animal Nature, August 26 – October 2, 2005.  An opening reception will take place on Friday, September 2 from 5-8 PM.  The Miller Gallery organized and co-curated Animal Nature with artists Lane Hall and Lisa Moline from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.

Animal Nature is an exhibition that developed out of an ongoing, expanding web-project entitled Criminal Animal  found at www.criminalanimal.org.  The exhibition, catalogue and related projects are unconventional in their approach. The undertaking brings together artists from around the globe with scholars and critics who all are engaged in investigations of “the animal” in one way or another.  Rather than positing a tight thesis, this exhibition-as-experiment contains diverse responses to open-ended questions.

"One might legitimately ask, ‘Why animals?’"  writes Lane Hall.  “When we study animals, we study ourselves.  When we represent animals, we represent our own complex mappings of nature and culture. From micro-organisms through charismatic mammals, we imagine our own health, disease, sustenance, love and loss through our understanding of Animal Nature.”

The animal and animal-body have long been sites of controversial research – medical studies, pharmaceutical investigations, and consumer product testing, to name a few. Animal Nature focuses on a different kind of research: poetic, empathic, personal, semiotic, formal.

According to Strayer, “Animal Nature grants viewers the opportunity to see work by some of the most innovative artistic and creative minds currently working in animal studies.  We’ve selected artists from a global perspective, with participants from Canada, England, New Zealand, Norway, and Serbia, as well as the United States.”  Animal Nature features the work of Edwina Ashton and Steve Baker, Catherine Chalmers, James Duesing and Jessica Hodgins, Lane Hall and Lisa Moline, Andrew Johnson, Eduardo Kac,  Dorijan Kolundzija, Lyne Lapointe, Per Maning,  Olly & Suzi, Michael Pestel, Angela Singer, and Stephen Wilson.  More about the participants may be found at www.cmu.edu/millergallery.

A full-color catalogue produced by the Miller Gallery will also be available.  It features an essay by Steve Baker, author of  Picturing the Beast: Animals, Identity and Representation and  The Postmodern Animal  along with entries by Lane Hall, and Jenny Strayer, director of the Miller Gallery.

The Miller Gallery is located on the Carnegie Mellon campus in Pittsburgh. It is free and open to the public. Hours of operation are Tuesday – Sunday 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Visitor parking is available in the East Campus Parking Garage, located on Forbes Avenue just east of the Moorewood intersection.  For more information, contact Jenny Strayer at 412 268 3877 or jstrayer@andrew.cmu.edu. Exhibitions at the Miller are supported in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, individual sponsors, and the School of Art and College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University.