the 2013 Carnegie International
Carnegie Museum of Art
PHYLLIDA BARLOW’S MASSIVE SCULPTURE TIP, 2013, looks like a cortege of festooned tank barriers trudging in a Carnival parade. At once celebratory and grim, Barlow’s colorful Maginot Line squeezes up to the front entrance of the Carnegie Museum of Art and its International as if queuing for admission. But Barlow’s bright wrapping and muscular buildup almost overwhelm the foyer on the other side of the threshold: Here, emptiness echoes. To the left sits Paulina Olowska’s melancholy display of borrowed antique puppets, accompanied by a wrought-iron epigram reading PUPPETRY IN AMERICA IS TRULY A