Just as it prepares to kick off construction of its expanded and renamed Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Pittsburgh on 12 April, Carnegie Mellon University has received a $10m gift to support the institute and the university’s public art programme.
The donors, Tod and Cindy Johnson, are both alumni of the university—in fact they met and got married while they were students there. Half of their gift will create an endowment for public art at the university, supporting acquisitions, commissions and more. The other half will go towards the development of the new ICA, which will be housed inside the $210m Richard King Mellon Hall of Sciences. In recognition of the gift, the university’s public art curator will have the official title of Johnson Family Public Art Curator and a gallery in the new ICA will be named for the Johnsons.
“Carnegie Mellon has been a special place for Cindy and me since we met as students,” Tod Johnson said in a statement. “In fact, Cindy earned her fine arts degree from what was then Carnegie Tech, deepening our love and appreciation for the arts, which has been a passion throughout our lives.”
Carnegie Mellon University alumni Cindy and Tod Johnson have committed $10m to support public art on the university’s Pittsburgh campus Courtesy Carnegie Mellon University
Cindy Johnson is a supporter of the arts who has been involved with the Guggenheim Museum and the Neuberger Museum of Art in New York. Tod Johnson, a longtime supporter of New York’s Metropolitan Opera, is the co-founder and managing director of the investment and consulting firm Duo Partners. Among other previous gifts to their alma mater, the Johnsons donated $50m in 2018 to endow its undergraduate scholarships and other student support programmes.
While construction on the building that will house the renamed and expanded ICA Pittsburgh is only just about to get underway, the university’s public art programme has kept busy. A site-specific work by Jessica Stockholder and a large mural by Stephanie Dinkins were installed on the campus in the past two years. Later this month, a new monumental work by Amanda Ross-Ho will be unveiled.
“Carnegie Mellon’s commitment to public art and interdisciplinary collaboration has created a programme unique to higher education,” Elizabeth Chodos, the ICA Pittsburgh’s director and inaugural Johnson Family Public Art Curator, said in a statement. “This programme will be further enhanced by the new ICA Pittsburgh, which will position us to create experiences that promote conversation and bring meaning to our contemporary life like nowhere else.”
Construction of the Richard King Mellon Hall of Sciences is expected to take about three years. In the meantime, the ICA Pittsburgh will continue to program its current space within the university’s Purnell Center for the Arts.