With “The Other Apartment,” a joint project by Jon Rubin and Sohrab Kashani, located in both Pittsburgh and Tehran, Iranians and Americans can attend events and experience the space together, in real time.
Mattress Factory
Posted inArt
A Three-Story Web Ensnares an Abandoned Building’s Past Lives
PITTSBURGH — Inside 516 Sampsonia Way, a 19th-century row house in the Mexican War Streets neighborhood, there no longer appear to be any 90-degree angles.
Posted inArt
A Report on the Cultural Boycott of Israel
Editor’s note: For roughly three years, Hyperallergic has been covering the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and how it manifests in the art world, including recently during the 31st São Paulo Biennial. The following report outlines recent developments in regards to BDS and the positions of various art-related entities.
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Surveying Arts Residencies Today: How to Make It Happen (Part 3)
Almost everyone I spoke with — and by “almost everyone,” I mean “everyone” — agrees that arts residencies are a great leap forward for one’s art career.
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Small Child Confused, Delighted by Kusama Dot Room
All art lovers have had those revelatory moments when visual art just blows our minds. It’s surprising, beautiful, provocative, painful, confusing and every kind of emotion at once. I think that’s what the small child in this video is feeling when he wanders into one of Yayoi Kusama’s infinite dot rooms. Also, it’s SO CUTE.
Posted inSponsored
[Sponsor] Mattress Factory Presents Art You Can Get Into
The Mattress Factory is a cutting-edge museum of contemporary art located in the historic Mexican War Streets of Pittsburgh’s North Side.
Hailed as the best facility for installation art in the United States, the Museum’s unusual galleries house a growing — and distinctive — permanent collection, featuring artists James Turrell, Yayoi Kusama, Winifred Lutz and Rolf Julius, as well as innovative temporary exhibitions.
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Pittsburgh: The Great Deceiver (Part Two)
The next morning I took the T (aka, the trolley) into the city, and walked across the bridge to The Warhol. I love The Warhol. (Hate the NO PHOTOS policy though.) It never lets me down. Feels a bit like Mecca to me. Even when I know what’s on, I always come across surprises. The first one greeted me in the 1st floor museum intro room. For the first time, I saw the “Album of a Mat Queen” (1962), Warhol’s silkscreen of the writer and painter Rosalyn Drexler from her days as a professional wrestler. (SORRY. NO PHOTOS.) A huge fan of Drexler, I had only read about this image. This is standard operating procedure at The Warhol. Surprises from their deep collection around every corner. (SORRY. NO PHOTOS.)
Posted inArt
Pittsburgh: The Great Deceiver (Part One)
On April 29, 1974, the prog rock masters King Crimson played a famously furious gig at the Stanley Warner theatre in Pittsburgh, later immortalized as part of the band’s towering 4-disc live set, The Great Deceiver. In 1974, the steel industry was wheezing its way out of town, and the city was careening toward a difficult decade filled with a shifting economy and populace. The malleability of the Crimson dinosaur was exactly what the city was going to need to recover. And they have, thanks to the medical and tech industries (And ROBOTS!).
In the 70’s, out of the ashes and soot of the crumble came something extraordinary for the art world. In 1977, Barbara Luderowski founded The Mattress Factory, an installation space that is the highlight and anchor of every visit I make to the city. Yet, too many people I know still think of Pittsburgh as it was in the famous painting by Aaron Henry Gorson pictured here. Let’s work on that. Starting with the fact that a visit to the ‘Burgh is almost always a galvanizing one.