PITTSBURGH, PA.-Carnegie Museum of Art has selected the graphic design firm COMA and Escher Gune Wardena Architecture, Inc., for the 2008 Carnegie International. The Carnegie International is the oldest international survey of contemporary art in North America, and the 2008 installment is the 55th exhibition in its history.

“We selected these firms for their fresh aesthetic sensibilities and innovative designs,” says Douglas Fogle, Carnegie Museum of Art curator of contemporary art and curator of the 2008 Carnegie International.

COMA, a graphic design firm based in Brooklyn and Amsterdam, has been recognized most recently for its 2006 design of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s Design Life Now: National Design Triennial. They designed all of the gallery graphics, the exhibition catalogue, and a special exhibition font. “COMA’s typeface is so smart and effective, and based on such a simple idea, that it must have other designers green with envy,” the Washington Post’s art critic Blake Gopnik writes. For the Carnegie International, COMA will be responsible for the design of the exhibition catalogue and all printed materials related to the 2008 Carnegie International, as well as for gallery graphics.

Escher Gune Wardena, based in Los Angeles, has worked in the United States, Canada, and Europe, and has received national and international recognition for its exhibitions and architectural designs. In 2003, they were one of only six architectural firms represented in the National Design Triennial at the Cooper-Hewitt. Their work addresses issues of sustainability and affordability, as well as the relationship between form and construction. Escher Gune Wardena will work with Carnegie Museum of Art’s exhibition team to develop the design and specifications for the installation of the show. Their design will both support the wide array of art objects in the exhibition and help facilitate the visitor experience.

The Carnegie International was first organized at the behest of industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in 1896. Carnegie established the International to educate and inspire the public as well as to promote international understanding and peace. He intended the International to provide a periodic sample of contemporary art from which Carnegie Museum of Art could enrich its permanent collection. The work of thousands of artists has been exhibited in the Carnegie International, including that of Winslow Homer, James McNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Rodin, Willem de Kooning, Henry Moore, Jackson Pollock, Rene Magritte, Joan Miró, Alberto Giacometti, Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys, Sigmar Polke, and William Kentridge.