Medal of Honor designed in 1896 by Tiffany & Co. for the Carnegie International, from the catalogue of the 1899 International.

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The Carnegie International opens on May 2, so you have one month to get ready. Traditionally the International is looked on in the art world as one of the top two or three exhibitions of contemporary art in the world; only the Venice Bienniale is more prestigious and more eagerly anticipated. The International is also, after the Bienniale, the second-oldest continuously running exhibition of contemporary art in the world: it began in 1896. Over the past 130 years, the greatest names in art have sent their works to the International, and the best of those works have been bought by the Carnegie to enrich its famous collection of modern art—giving life to Andrew Carnegie’s ambition to collect the Old Masters of tomorrow.

The 59th International is entitled If the word we.

The description on the Carnegie Museum of Art site is such a museum of artistic buzzwords in itself that we quote this paragraph (for the fair-usey purpose of criticism) in the confidence that our readers will learn more about contemporary art just by reading it than they would learn by actually attending the exhibition.

Titled If the word we, the 59th Carnegie International 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. Drawing from a commissioned catalogue essay by writer Haytham el-Wardany, the exhibition approaches “we” not as a unified subject but as a complex and porous position, attentive to contradiction and change. Across a wide range of media, from painting, photography, and sculpture, to installation, video, performance, and theater, participating artists traverse cultural, political, intellectual, and spiritual geographies that extend beyond national boundaries. The projects emerge through everyday acts, materials, and environments, offering spatially expansive portraits of collective life in the present.

It seems to Dr. Boli that he will need at least a month to get ready for the 59th International. It will take him that long to brace himself for pronouns that are attentive positions.

But he will probably visit the International, if only because he has been a member of the Carnegie Museum for a long time, so the exhibition is already paid for, whereas the comedy theater on Liberty Avenue charges admission. And if any readers happen to be in Pittsburgh over the next few months (the International continues to the beginning of 2027), he recommends that they spend an hour at the International; it will teach them more than any other single experience could teach about the meaning of art in a post-art world.

After that, your admission is also good for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, which is in the same enormous complex, so you can go see the world’s best collection of dinosaurs and tell them, “I know how you feel.”