Artists Whose Medium is Outer Space to Speak at Carnegie Mellon University

March 18, 2006

San Francisco, Calif. — Lowry Burgess and Frank Pietronigro, two pioneers in the world of space art, will present their ideas and work at “Space Art: The Cultural Frontiers of Space Travel,” a program presented by the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University.

Lowry Burgess, a distinguished fellow at Carnegie Mellon's STUDIO for Creative Inquiry and professor at the School of Art, will discuss his efforts to gain support for his pioneering work, and present an overview of his poetic work.

Frank Pietronigro, an associate fellow at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, will describe his experience of creating “drift paintings” in microgravity that he created as a part of “Research Project Number 33: Investigating the Creative Process in a Microgravity Environment.”

The artists will also present an overview of their current project, the “Space Art Track” of the 25th International Space Development Conference (ISDC) co-sponsored by the National Space Society and the Planetary Society.

Pietronigro will present video of his work during a parabolic flight aboard NASA's KC135 turbojet, and discuss his role as project director and co-founder of the Zero Gravity Arts Consortium (ZGAC). ZGAC is a international organization, based in the United States, dedicated to fostering greater access for artists to space flight technology and zero gravity space through the creation of international partnerships with space agencies, arts organizations and universities.


EVENT: “Space Art: The Cultural Frontiers of Space Travel”
DATE: Thursday, March 23, 2006
TIME: 7:00 p.m.
PLACE: H&SS Auditorium, Room A53, Baker Hall, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA


About the Artists:

Lowry Burgess is an internationally renowned environmental artist/poet and educator. He created the first official non-scientific payload, the “Boundless Cubic Lunar Aperture,” taken into outer space by NASA in March of 1989. His major 35-year opus, the “Quiet Axis,” contains eight major aspects, all containing celestial and cosmic elements. His artworks and documents are in museums, archives and collections in the US, Europe and Japan.

He is professor of art and former dean of the College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University. He is a distinguished fellow in the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, which supports advanced research in the interdisciplinary arts. He is also a member of the Center for the Arts in Society at Carnegie Mellon. He has held other distinguished chairs in Hartford and Montreal.

He has been a fellow and senior consultant at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts for 25 years where he created and directed large collaborative projects in the US and Europe.

He is the originator of the international New Year's arts festival called “First Night.” He originated the arts in the subways programs for the Department of Transportation. He has developed and advised in more than a dozen major city scale and national projects. He has been featured in television and radio broadcasts in the US, Europe and Japan, including NOVA, Smithsonian World and NPR.

His book, “Burgess, the Quiet Axis” received the prestigious Imperishable Gold Award from Le Devoir in Montreal. He has been honored with awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, National Institute of Arts and Letters, Guggenheim Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Massachusetts Artist Foundation, and Kellogg Foundation.


Frank Pietronigro is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and author residing in San Francisco, California.

Pietronigro has achieved international recognition for projects he creates that build bridges between artists and space flight technology. As a result of “Research Project Number 33: Investigating the Creative Process in a Microgravity Environment,” on April 4, 1998, Frank became the first American painter to create three-dimensional “drift paintings” while floating in zero gravity aboard NASA's KC135 turbojet.

In 2004, Frank Pietronigro was appointed associate fellow at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at the College of Fine Arts, Carnegie Mellon University and currently serves as co-founder and project director of the Zero Gravity Arts Consortium (ZGAC), an international space arts organization dedicated to fostering greater access for artists to space exploration technology. Pietronigro also serves as co-chair for the Space Art Track of the 25th International Space Development Conference Co-Sponsored by the National Space Society and Planetary Society. He will help facilitate a series of inspirational presentations and panels complimented by an exhibition, film screenings, and Zero Gravity Arts Consortium parabolic flight for artists and webcast direct from Zero Gravity Corporation's Boeing 727 jet.

He was invited to participate in Paris's historic International Art Outsiders Festival: Space Arts Festival and was included in a symposium and presentation titled “Visibility - Legibility of Space Art: Zero Gravity Art: The Experience of Parabolic Flight,” that was held at the Maison Europeenne de la Photographie in March, 2003. Pietronigro's work has also been presented with museums and institutions including: the virtual Tate In Space, Tate Museum, London; Smart Project Space, Amsterdam; Museum Fur Gestaltung, Zurich; Galeria Ze Dos Bois, Lisbon; Castle Gallery, College of New Rochelle, NY; Southern Exposure Gallery, San Francisco; Blohard Gallery at Vox Populi, Philadelphia; the Mill Valley Film Festival and the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center. He was appointed by the San Francisco Art Commission to direct the 39th Annual San Francisco Arts Festival, a month-long celebration of the visual and performing arts of the Bay Area.

Pietronigro received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in Interdisciplinary Arts and also studied fine art at the Philadelphia College of Art.