59th Carnegie International at Carnegie Museum of Art

The 59th Carnegie International, titled if the word we, curated by Ryan Inuye, Danielle A. Jackson, and Liz Park in the Carnegie Museum of Art, considers the first-person plural as an open and evolving proposition – one shaped by listening, translation, and transformation – bringing together artistic practices that engage shared experience, circulation, and worlds in transition. The exhibition approaches ‘we’ not as a unified subject but as a complex and porous position, attentive to contradiction and change. The projects emerge through everyday acts, materials, and environments, offering spatially expansive portraits of collective life in the present.

Taking its cues from the curatorial statement emphasizing connections across dynamic artist communities and geographies, B-KD approached the exhibition’s design as an example of worlds in the making and in transition. Within the 45,000-square-foot exhibition space, surfaces, volumes, and objects with different rhythms, textures, and scales run parallel to one another. Existing galleries within the museum remain architecturally untouched, exposing their inherent rhythm and scale. A series of free-standing walls and rooms runs through the center of the galleries, enlivened by a limewash texture, while a series of platforms and pedestals in anodized aluminum provides its own rhythm and scale.

Photos by Zachary Riggleman.

Status

Completed in 2026

Program

Art Exhibition 

Area

45,000 sf

Location

Pittsburgh, PA

The design aims to create a productive tension when different worlds collide, where contradiction and cohabitation coexist and are celebrated. 

B-KD collaborated closely with several artists included in the Carnegie International to design the architectural interventions that present new landscapes in dialogue with their works. A meandering pathway with expanding mesh surfaces on either side provided flexible hanging for 90 tapestries by Silät Collective, while a back-illuminated ceiling panel allowed artist Ana Raylander to install her artifacts above.

Team

Design Team: Koray Duman, Caitlin Dippo, Angel Rodriguez