Visitors to the Carnegie Museum of Art are being asked to take photos, share experiences, and eat free cake as part of the museum’s two new projects.
Debuting February 9 and 21 respectively, 20/20: Celebrating Two Decades of the Heinz Architectural Center and Oh Snap! Your Take on Our Photographs are designed to help visitors see a trip to the galleries as part of a conversation.
Museum Spokesman Jonathan Gaugler said the “20/20” project is opening with a cake contest called CAKEitecture, where they’ll be celebrating the Heinz Architectural Center’s 20th birthday.
The event pairs architects with local bakeries, and all attendees will get a taste.
“Some of the bakers have even challenged the others saying ‘make the whole thing edible,’ which is kind of fun,” said Gaugler. “There will be five cakes. Visitors can vote for their favorites. There will be a guest judge as well to give an award in that respect. So we’ll have a people’s choice and a judge’s choice.”
“And yeah, at a certain point in the evening we’ll say ‘yep, let’s taste them.”
Gaugler said "20/20" will display 20 objects chosen from current and former curators from the Center’s collection and presents a video of people outside the museum reflecting on what architecture means to them.
He said there will be a station where visitors can record their own reflections.
For the “Oh Snap!” project, he museum has chosen 13 photographs to mount on a wall starting Feb. 21. They then will invite visitors to submit their own photographic responses to the art online.
Gaugler said some of the responses will work their way into the exhibit.
“If you go early in the show, it’ll look like 13 photographs on a wall from out collection,” said Gaugler. “The later you go you’ll start to see clusters of photographs on the wall, some from the museum collections, some submitted by users, that will show a broader kind of discussion around that photograph.”
Visitors can find more information about how to submit pictures and visit the exhibits on the museum’s website. CAKEitecture is free and open to the public from 7-9 p.m. on February 9th.
