The great thing about the International is that for 112 years, it’s been doing that for Pittsburgh. So the show’s for Pittsburgh and in the end I did the show — I wasn’t thinking about tailoring the show. I was hoping people would like the show but I wasn’t tailoring for the art audience and I wasn’t tailoring for the people. I was just thinking about it and I really did it for myself, too. It’s a show that I enjoy as much as I hope everyone else does because I enjoy walking through it every time I go through it.

I think there are moments of quiet contemplation and there are moments of spectacle.

How do you feel that the exhibit engages the viewer?
FOGLE: I think there’s something for everyone in the show. I mean I think there’s abstract work, there’s figurative work, there’s painting, there’s sculpture, there’s film, there’s drawing, there’s sound work.

I think it engages all sorts of different people with different tastes at different, sort of, possibilities. I think there are things in it that kids will love. I think there are things in it that adults will love. And sometimes the adults and the kids will love the same thing. I think there are moments of quiet contemplation and there are moments of spectacle and I think there are moments of participatory kind of work, like Rivanue Neuenschwander’s “I Wish your Wish,” the ribbon work that’s in the lobby. There are works that are not meant to be participated with, but to be enjoyed, like a film or a painting. They’re all participatory because you’re engaging with them. But I don’t know — I think that there’s all sorts of different types of things that people might find interesting. If people find one thing interesting in a show out of 40 artists, or one artist that they really like, that asks questions of them, I think that’s a success. There might be 39 things they don’t like, and one thing that changes their life, or changes their way of seeing the every day world they walk through.

I think work that gives you answers immediately is boring and quick and lacks depth.

That is the power of art, you have to remember that contemporary art — the Renaissance had contemporary art. It just wasn’t called that. It was the art of the day. I think that Piero della Francesca was speaking to 15th Century Italy in the way that a lot of contemporary artists are speaking to the world we live in. We live in a much more complicated world. Many more of us have access to this kind of art than did in that period of time, which is a great thing. The revolution of democracy has allowed people from all over the world from different backgrounds to appreciate and to be able to engage with contemporary art. But the bottom line is that in an exhibition like this, I think you’re bringing the world to Pittsburgh. So people for the first time here are getting to see work from Korea, or work from Japan, or work from South America.

In the end, really, the greatest thing for me about contemporary art is — the best contemporary art is work that asks more questions than it gets answers. I think that when you leave with questions, even things that pique your curiosity and you maybe didn’t like at first. But then they’re working on you, and a week later you’re still thinking about that painting, which you thought was weird. But you don’t know why you keep thinking about it. That’s fantastic. That’s what’s it’s all about. I think work that gives you answers immediately is boring and quick and lacks depth. I think work that opens up all sorts of associations and whatnot, I think is the best for me. And I think a lot of these artists do that. Hopefully all of them.

If something in the show changes the way people look at the world even an iota I think then the show is successful.

If the exhibit had a legacy, or something that you — other than what we just spoke about — something that you would want a visitor to walk away with in their mind, what would that be?
FOGLE: It’s hard to say. A sense of wonder. I think a sense of wonder about the relationship between art and the world that people live in. If it changes, as I said a minute ago, I mean if it changes their perception of something they see every day and they walk by and don’t notice. If something in the show changes the way people look at the world even an iota I think then the show is successful. There are people that I know whose lives were changed by seeing the international in the ’50s or the ’60s or the ’70s, and decided on career paths or philanthropic paths… It’s hard to put a price on that. And it’s hard to — when you talk about legacy; I mean that’s the legacy of this exhibition over 112 years. Andy Warhol was a product of having seen Internationals and taking art classes here. Lots of other artists have come through, but not just artists. People who were just students and then became involved — loved art after they saw their Internationals and now are giving back to the city in all sorts of great ways. It’s been an amazing thing and it’s the second oldest exhibition like this in the world. I mean it’s amazing. The city’s amazing for that. Venice, Italy and Pittsburgh. These are the oldest ones in the world.

You typically wouldn’t view Pittsburgh in that way.
FOGLE: I wouldn’t view a lot of places. I wouldn’t view Minneapolis that way, where I spent 11 years, but indeed, the Walker Art Center’s been there for 75 years doing that. It has a very similar relationship to the city that the Carnegie does. And this — it’s not just the exhibition. It’s the museum itself because the collection we have here is based on, in many cases, the core of it, comes from works bought since 1896 from the exhibitions. So that was the legacy that Carnegie gave to the city, and it’s an amazing one. And we’ll continue that by buying works out of the show.