Exhibits
The Carnegie Center for Art and History is a local history museum and contemporary art gallery. The Center offers visitors the opportunity to enjoy art works in a variety of media and to learn more about the process of creative expression and the history of New Albany and Floyd County through a range of exhibitions and programs for all ages. The Carnegie Center is host to two permanent exhibitions and a full schedule of changing exhibitions. See our archive of past Changing Exhibits.
Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage: Men & Women of the Underground Railroad
This award-winning exhibit draws the national phenomenon of the Underground Railroad into sharp focus by revealing the contributions of ordinary people, both free and enslaved, whose courageous acts on both sides of the Ohio River helped overthrow the institution of slavery.
Grandpa Makes A Scene: The Yenawine Dioramas
This delightful exhibit is named after its creator Merle Yenawine, who was born and reared in Georgetown, Indiana. He created each diorama based on his childhood memories of small town life at the turn of the last century.
New Albany Bicentennial Public Art Project
The New Albany Bicentennial Public Art Project is a 4-year program featuring a rotating schedule of 5 outdoor artworks that will be installed each year in the downtown area, beginning in 2010 and leading up to New Albany's bicentennial commemoration in 2013
Landmarks Through the Viewfinder: 50 Years of Preservation in Southern Indiana
The jury-selected photographs of historic places will be displayed in several other venues in Southern Indiana. July 23-August 21, 2010.
Exhibit Schedule 
July 23 – August 21 / Reception: Friday, July 23, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Landmarks Through the Viewfinder: 50 Years of Preservation in Southern Indiana
(with Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana)
To celebrate Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana’s 50th anniversary, the organization’s Southern Regional Office has organized a traveling exhibit of photography entitled Landmarks through the Viewfinder: 50 Years of Preservation in Southern Indiana. Amateur and professional photographers were invited to submit their photographs of historic buildings in Southern Indiana. The selected works will be on view at the Carnegie Center and will travel to select sites in Southern Indiana. Accompanying the photographs at the Carnegie Center, will be objects from historic buildings in Floyd County, both those that have been lost and some that have been preserved. This will be an extraordinary opportunity to explore historic preservation and its role in our community through the exhibition and accompanying programs.
August 27 – October 23 / Reception: Friday, August 27, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Drawings and Videos by Julia Oldham
Julia Oldham is a video artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. In her work she investigates science and nature through performance; she has made many pieces focused on the behaviors of insects and is currently working on a series of videos examining historical physics experiments. Recent exhibitions include solo shows at Art in General in New York, NY; The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, IL; and Espaço3 in Lisbon, Portugal. Her videos have been included in recent screenings at the Dia Foundation at the Hispanic Society in New York, NY and the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. Oldham’s work has been supported by the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs; Artadia, the Fund for Art and Dialogue; Art in General in New York; and Blue Mountain Center. She received her MFA from the University of Chicago in 2005.
During her residency at Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest (www.bernheim.org) in April and May 2010, Julia Oldham will explore the intersection of human projects and natural processes through a series of experiments and performances that will take place in front of her video camera. She is particularly interested in the controlled prairie burns that take place in the spring, and the Wilson Creek Project in which a creek was relocated to increase biodiversity. Visit the artist’s website at www.juliaoldham.com for more information about her previous works.
October 29 – December 30 / Reception: Friday, October 29, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Phoenix Rising: Artwork by Susan Gorsen
Louisville artist Susan Gorsen has been exhibiting vividly colored abstract drawings for nearly three decades. She works mainly in oil pastel crayons and, due to the vivid jewel tones she uses, she has been described as “a person in love with color.” In 2004 degenerative osteo-arthritis in both shoulders made it impossible for Ms. Gorsen to continue her quarter-century studio practice. After having bi-lateral shoulder replacement surgery in 2007 she was determined to resume her artwork and, as of January 2009, she is back working full-time in her studio. An apt comparison to her return to her studio after believing her art career to have ended is the metaphor of the phoenix rising again from its ashes. “I want to demonstrate how the inherent creative spirit cannot be snuffed out by medical challenges, despite years of being unable to work and additional years trying to relearn everything I was once able to do on autopilot,” says Gorsen. This exhibition will highlight both works of art that Gorsen created before her surgery and works that she has created since returning to her studio. “I want to demonstrate the changes that have occurred and show how such things are true creative catalysts. I find it fascinating as an observer of my own efforts to note the extent of changes in the work both in terms of composition and motion as well as the flow of imagery and shapes that appear to have been somehow deconstructed (like my shoulders) and are now simply floating in suspended animation.”