Since its beginning in 1896, the Carnegie international exhibition of contemporary art has aroused as much irritation as appreciation in its native Pittsburgh. It undertakes to round up what the world's artists are doing at the moment, and artists are notoriously a bit ahead of the public. Last week's Carnegie, with 367 paintings and 127 sculptures, irritated even more than usual—the show proved to be almost wholly devoted to abstract expressionism from 31 countries. Abstractions swept nine out of ten prizes (the tenth was a semi-abstract Henry Moore) and, as the New York Times's Critic Howard Devree dourly noted, every...
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