Ugo Rondinone, Roundelay, 2003. Installation view.
It happens once every four years, it tends to engender heated debate, and it shapes the course of future events: Yes, it’s the Carnegie International, the quadrennial survey of contemporary art that aims to home in on what Andrew Carnegie called the “old masters of tomorrow.” This year’s edition, curated by Laura Hoptman, includes thirty-eight prospects, some much-fêted (Lee Bontecou, Rachel Harrison, Yang Fudong), and some who have been flying under the radar for too long (Mangelos, Senga Nengudi). All are engaged in an exploration of “the ‘ultimates’ of what it is to be a human being on this earth right now,” as Hoptman puts it—undoubtedly an endeavor that the original old masters would have approved.
