Pittsburgh Parking Day 2009 Is September 18th

CommunityWalk Map - PARK(ing) Day 2009 Map

Ever look at a building or place and wonder what else might have been done with it? Usually, you can't go back but some folks in San Fransisco in 2006 lauched a plan to get people to turn sterile parking spaces into mini parks or art projects for one day. One day to see other possibilities for scarce urban land.



Since then, it's taken off and is in 124 cities accross the world. Pittsburgh's first parking day was last year.

More Info here.

Installation Olympic Theatre At The Mattress Factory

Installation Olympic Theatre at The Mattress Factory!

Artist Tom Sarver of The Tom Museum, along with the Mattress Factory Museum of Art present Pittsburgh's newest art event, Installation Olympic Theatre. This event features three teams of Pittsburgh artists competing over 2.5 hours to build winning sculptural installations. The night will also feature food, beverages, audience participation games, music by Totten (member of The Great Ants) and DJ Sarver Express.

Installation Olympic Theatre takes place, Saturday, March 17th from 7pm to 10:30pm at the Mattress Factory. Tickets are $9.00 and $6.00 for students. (Available at the door)

Conceived by Tom Sarver, Installation Olympic Theatre brings the drama and excitement of reality TV straight to the art museum. The idea is closely connected to The Tom Museum's "Art For Everyone"
mission. It also attempts to bring people who are drawn to the action and excitement of sports into the arts.
Three teams of artists will be competing in the event for the title of "Masters of Installation Olympic Theatre." Each team will be provided with a mystery pile of building materials that will be unveiled at the opening ceremony of the event. Teams will also be allowed to bring in one suitcase of their own tools and materials to use in the competition. Only raw materials and tools will be allowed in the team suitcases. Judging criteria will include aesthetic value of the final product, entertainment value of performance element and creative use of materials provided. Seating for the event will be minimal. Audience members will be able to walk around during the event to watch the installations in progress.
Tom Sarver, Mike Cuccaro and Liz Hammond will host the event.
Judges for the event will include Heather Pesanti, Assistant Curator at The Carnegie Museum of Art, John Morris, Owner of Digging Pitt Gallery, and Owen Smith, Assistant Curator of the Mattress Factory.
Three teams of diverse backgrounds will be competing in the competition. Team Leader Tavia La Follette (Founder and Executive Director of Artists Upstairs) is an artist, director, set designer, performer and puppeteer. She will be working with Atticus Adams, (sculptor and installation artist) Stephanie Mayer-Staley, (Head of Design, Conservatory of Performing Arts, Point Park University) and Larry Bogad. (Professor of Performance Studies a UC Davis)
Ben Kinsley, M.F.A. candidate at Carnegie Mellon University, will lead a second team. When asked to provide information on his team, Ben responded, "I play people like musical instruments." Ben's teammates include Kazuki Eguchi (who wrestles giant balls of dough) and John Peña (who races clouds).
The third team includes some of Pittsburgh's most prolific multimedia artists led by T. Foley. Her team includes Jesse McLean, Carolyn Lambert and Thad Kellstadt. Installation Olympic Theatre may be the first of a series of art theatre events. Plans are in the works for a series including sculpture, painting and drawing Olympic Theatre events.

Sponsors for the event include Pittsburgh City Paper, Whole Foods, The East End Food Co-op, Construction Junction, Trader Joes, Penn Brewery, Breadworks and Artists and Craftsman' Supply. The Tom Museum is a project of the Mattress Factory, supported by The Creative Heights initiative of The Heinz Endowments.

Contact:

Tom Sarver, Event Organizer & Director of The Tom Museum tomsarver@gmail.com www.tommuseum.com

The Mattress Factory
500 Sampsonia Way
Pittsburgh, PA 15212
Phone: 412-322-2231

Gestures @ The Mattress Factory : images 2

Jeff Schwarz
Jeff Schwarz
Shawn Watrous
Shawn Watrous
Alexandra Johnson Watrous
Alexandra Johnson Watrous
Alexandra Johnson Watrous

Here's my next batch of images from the last Gestures show. Try to remember that these were instalations and trying to capture anything about them with a few still images doesn't work. For the record, the photo above the fireplace in Alex Watrous's shot is a separate work by Anne Angyal. Also, the Jeff Schwarz work is a video projection with sound. The Mattress factory often posts an image archive of their shows, so stay tuned.

Factory Installed @ Mattress Factory

Jesse Bercowetz & Matt Bua

Dan Steinhilber

Here are some nice shots from the must see, "Factory Installed" show at the Mattress Factory, which is up till January 7th. Merge's review of the gestures show, spurred me to throw them up there. All of these nice images were taken off the Matress Factory sight- great job. I saw this show at the opening, but I want to spend more time with it.

Getting trapped in Dan Steinhilber's wacky handmade science project with a few little kids was a transformative experience.

Here's a little list of the art materials used in these installations

Jesse Bercowetz & Matt Bua

wood, fabric, videos, reclining chair, microwave oven, carpet, plastic bins, lights, speakers, motors, colored water, water pumps, sonic foggers, spoons, rope, foam, fans, theatrical gels, sensors, werewolf mask, found objects, photographs, books and documents

Dan Steinhilber

plastic tarp, Rigid Air-Mover fans, Genie garage door opener, Rigid leaf blower/vac, Styrofoam peanuts, plastic trash bag,electronic timer and components, lithium grease, nylon rope

Keny Marshall @ Space

Here are Merge's thoughts about the Kenny Marshall show at Space Gallery downtown.

After I escaped the congestion at the Mattress Factory, I made the short drive downtown to have a look at Keny Marshall's opening at SPACE Gallery downtown. A look through the glass plate exterior of SPACE hints at the antiquated industrial wonderland inside. A conglomeration of pipes, gauges and joints coalesces into a large free-form mazelike structure reminiscent of a particularly dangerous playground "jungle gym". As impressively foreboding as the piece is, it merely hints of the magic contained at the rear of the gallery.

"Apophenia" is a confounding and playful installation centered on a large glass sphere aquarium. The movements of several fish (successors to the trail-blazing, but now unfortunately-deceased creatures involved during the project's initial conception) are videotaped by unobtrusive cameras that feed into two stacked monitors nearby. Motion-detectors attached to the screens monitor the movements of the aforementioned fish, and send electrical charges to towers with plastic slinky-like respirators. The resulting discharges of air are directed into beat-up brass instruments that announce the activities of the marine life.

Keny Marshall must be some sort of mad genius to have dreamed up such a scheme. As the piece's title suggests, it is a commentary on "patterns or connections in random or meaningless data." Yet it elicits a consideration of the very nature of concepts like "random" and "meaningless". Such carefully orchestrated harnessing of instinctual animal behavior suggests an intricately manipulative plan, whereby the artist has become the divine arbiter of fate. Through his contraption, Marshall articulates a dialogue between chance and creation. And it's all accentuated by an aesthetic reminiscent of the post-industrial tableus of Jean Pierre-Jeunet and Marc Caro (City of Lost Children, Delicatessen).

But why rely on my rather heavy-handed attempts to describe "Apophenia"? You may have missed the opening, but the exhibit continues until December 31st. Make it a point to come out and see this wildly inspired grand design.