Contact:
Eric Sloss
412-268-5765

For immediate release:
February 21, 2005

Carnegie Mellon School of Art Presents "No Stone Unturned: A Symposium On Artists + Gardens," Monday, April 11, 2005

"No Stone Unturned" is part of the celebration of the opening of the Kraus Campo (above), a new public space created by artist Mel Bochner (A'62) and Michael Van Valkenburgh, one of America's leading landscape architects.

PITTSBURGH—On Monday, April 11, 2005, Carnegie Mellon University's School of Art will host a symposium, "No Stone Unturned: Artists + Gardens," the first symposium to investigate the garden as art through the perspectives of some of the nation's leading artists and landscape designers.

Symposium speakers will discuss the continuing evolution of the garden through a variety of recent and prominent projects, examining developments within art and design communities. "No Stone Unturned" provides an overview of gardens as social, political, and philosophical sites. Throughout the day, speakers will present projects and creative approaches that exemplify the intersection of art, landscape design and the natural or built environment.

Symposium presentations will address questions such as: What is a garden and how does it function? How does a garden differ from a park? How does design respond to historical contexts? What role does ecology play? Are modernist and post-modernist attitudes still viable in transforming large-scale public sites?

"No Stone Unturned: Artists + Gardens" is free and open to the public. Sessions begin at 9:30 a.m. April 11. All sessions for the event will be held in the McConomy Auditorium at the University Center on Carnegie Mellon's campus.

"No Stone Unturned" is part of the celebration of the opening of the Kraus Campo, a new public space unique to Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon. The Campo is the creation of Mel Bochner (A '62), conceptual artist, and Michael Van Valkenburgh, one of America's leading landscape architects. Carnegie Mellon is a front-runner in the emerging discipline of art and the environment.

"No Stone Unturned" brings together a distinguished group of artists, landscape architects and other experts in this emerging field. Featured speakers will include:

• Julie Bargmann (A '80)—principal designer of D.I.R.T. (Design Investigations Reclaiming Terrain); assistant professor and director of the Landscape Architecture Program at the University of Virginia
• Bob Bingham—environmental artist and associate professor of art at Carnegie Mellon University
• Mel Bochner (A '62)—Conceptual artist and designer of the Kraus Campo
• Robert Irwin—artist and designer of gardens at the Getty Center in Los Angeles and Dia:Beacon in New York.
• Valerie Smith—director of exhibitions, Queens Museum of Art; curator of "Down the Garden Path: Artists' Gardens Since 1960" (on view at QMA, June 2—October 9, 2005)
• Michael Van Valkenburgh—principal, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates; Charles Eliot Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture at Harvard Design School; landscape architect of the Kraus Campo
• Meg Webster—sculptor and creator of A New California Garden at Stanford University and Kitchen Garden at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston.