The Art Lending Collection, 2013
Braddock Library—the flagship Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh—has found a partnership with Carnegie Museum of Art that is as unique and important as it is powerful. It is so impactful, in fact, that it’s even called Transformazium. Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood has exhibited cutting-edge exhibitions and installed captivating projects of contemporary art since the early 1900s. In 2013, one of the Carnegie International exhibition’s most relevant and poignant pieces was a collaboration with Braddock Library that is still going strong today.
Is art for the people, or only for certain people? This lending library takes a truly equitable approach, embracing the notion that art is for all; that surrounding oneself with beautiful images of one’s choice, is elevating, enriching, and just as gratifying as taking a tome off the shelf burrowing deeply into another world.
It works like this: Artwork from the Lending Library collection are catalogued and accounted for in the same way that any other holding—book, magazine, or video—is kept on site. A patron who’s interested in, or even just curious about, a work of art can request and check out the artwork, take it home, and enjoy it for the duration of the loan period, up to two weeks.
It’s one thing to enjoy a painting or framed drawing from afar, with throngs of people at a popular museum or in the pages of an art encyclopedia. It’s quite another to enjoy the artwork in the company of your own collection of furniture and things, nestled among your own treasures, drawing strength and sustenance from each brushstroke and delicate array of patterns. Art is also meant to be shared, so this concept allows neighbors the ability to enjoy the same works of art in turn.
