Press release for premiere of The Text of Light and opening of the Sarah Scaife Gallery
(10/22/1974)
Museum of Art
for IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 22, 1974
Carnegie Institute 4400 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213 Tel. (412) 622--3212
The world premier of The Text of Light, a new film by internationally known independent film maker Stan Brakhage, will be shown on Saturday, October 26 at 8:30 p.m. to celebrate the opening of Carnegie Institute’s Sarah Scaife Gallery, Museum of Art. The film, a completely abstract composition of light and shadow, is dedicated to Jim Davis, film maker and "sculptor of light." Two primary impulses for Brakhage while working on the film were statements of William Blake, "To see a world in a grain of sand," and of Dun Scotus Erigena, "All that is is light."
The new Gallery was designed by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes of New York and will be the home of the permanent fine arts collection of Carnegie Institute’s Museum of Art. The Gallery will include a cafe, a Museum of Art gift shop, a 180-seat auditorium, offices for the Museum of Art staff and a central courtyard open to the sky between the old and new buildings.
Money for the $12-million project was given to the Institute by the Sarah Mellon Scaife Foundation and the Scaife family along with an endowment to assure its continued operation and maintenance. The Gallery is scheduled to be open to the public on Saturday, October 26.
