30 Years Of World View

Communication, like art, takes on many forms of expression. It is exciting for a teacher or an artist when a response erupts among students and onlookers that generates dialog and triggers creative energy. However, when it comes to contemporary art, specifically installation art, people have a curious slow-start way of describing these new and unfamiliar ideas. Upon being confronted with the out-of the-norm experience, most people will discover such encounters to be, at the very least, intriguing. The typical response is usually something like, “Well, it sure does makes you think.” or “Hmmm…” or “That’s challenging.” It is true that installation art evokes such vocal responses and then some. No matter how you look at it, however, installation art indeed causes you to think. It is, after all, interesting and challenging to witness what has never been seen quite like that before.

Here in Pittsburgh, the Mattress Factory houses one of the most noteworthy installation art experiences in the world. Being located in the North Side’s central core, adjacent the Mexican War Streets, makes the whole contemporary art/installation art experience all the more interesting.

While conventional museums sit well with historical collections, the Mattress Factory is always supporting and promoting artistic expression of the changing times through various interpretations and cultures.

“The Mattress Factory is about leaving your art baggage at the door,” says Barbara Luderowski, executive/artistic director of the museum. “It is not a test of your intelligence; it is more about opening up your eyes and your mind to looking at things in a different way, without preconceived notions and expectations. A lot of what is created here is meant for the pure experience.”

For three decades, the Mattress Factory has been thinking outside the box. Since its inception, it has been a strong leader as a museum of contemporary art and a strong supporter of artists in general. The museum invites living artists to come to the museum, to live in residence, and to create site-specific works, which in turn enables the artist to be a part of the making of art history. While they’re in residence, the museum supports all of the artists’ needs, including day-to-day living needs and anything necessary for them to create their installations. Since its establishment in 1977 by founding Executive Artistic Director Barbara Luderowski, the Mattress Factory itself has been a work in progress. It remains innovative and resourceful in its ongoing growth.

“The work that happens at the Mattress Factory is unique to the Mattress Factory,” says Michael Olijnyk, museum curator. “It is like that favorite bakery that you stop at when in Berlin, because you can’t get what they make anywhere else. Because of the museum’s uniqueness, artists from around the world come to the Mattress Factory and create new works in the gallery that you experience them in.”

Over time the museum has evolved from a small artist collective to an internationally renowned museum. The mission expresses its purpose as a research and development lab for artists, and commissions new, site-specific works for its spaces. Seasoned with time, the museum has facilitated this vision with new resources and continuous innovative ideas. This includes the addition of a highly welcomed educational program, which acts as a partnership between five schools, matched with a Pittsburgh-based artist in residence. Students and teachers alike unleash their creative voice to bring together and explore installation art, the Mattress Factory and the art-making process. The ultimate aim, in addition to individual personal enrichment, is the challenge to one’s thinking with a collaborative effort on the piece and the final installation.

“The idea is that you introduce everybody—especially children, the next generation—to something new,” says Luderowski. “Coming with an open mind, to something that you have never seen before—that’s the way people learn to expect differences, examine those differences, and enjoy those differences.”

Children and adults can also participate in programs throughout the year, including free summer children’s programs and the museum’s free Community ARTlabs. Involvement opportunities, which foster installation, artistic expression and collaboration, range from the hands-on studio experience, to community outreach innovations.

Over the past 30 years, the Mattress Factory has featured the works of over 300 artists through the museum’s integrated residency and exhibition program. Select past prominent works are archived because they represent a vivid expression of the time, and therefore serve as an important art-history resource. Permanent exhibitions at the museum include the works of world-renowned artist James Turrell, who created his first installation at the Mattress Factory in 1982; William Anastassi, who created works in 1989 and 1991 fat the museum; Yayoi Kusama, who created her works for the museum in 1996; and many others as well. The Mattress Factory has also acquired additional properties on the North Side that house additional galleries, artist apartments, offices and the museum’s education studio.

The museum’s artist residency program is a unique creative opportunity in its support of artists. It provides them the opportunity to express themselves, while at the same time sustaining them throughout the process. This reflects the core of the Mattress Factory roots, whose existence was founded upon the ideal that the contemporary art world needs to support the contemporary visionaries of its time. This artist-centered, grass roots mentality has made the Mattress Factory a haven for artists and gained the museum international recognition as a leader in contemporary art.

In keeping with their aim, and to mark their 30-year achievement, Mattress Factory founder, Barbara Luderowski, and Curator of Exhibitions, Michael Olijnyk, traveled to India to select 10 artists to participate in the 2007 exhibitions. The artists were invited to come to Pittsburgh to live in residency at the museum while creating new work on-site in the galleries. The first part of the exhibition was first introduced in April with India: New Installations Part I and Double Consciousness, and continues with India: New Installations, Part II beginning on September 7, with an opening reception from 6 to 9 p.m.

The first show featured acclaimed artists Mansi Bhatt, Krishnaraj Chonat, Sudarshan Shetty and Navin Thomas. These artists’ works have been exhibited in galleries around the world including Gallery SKE, Sakshi Gallery in Bangalore, E’cole des Beaux Arts in Paris, the Japan Foundation in Tokyo, Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbi, Visual Arts Gallery India Habitat Centre in Delhi; the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan, and the Holland Art Gallery in Rotterdam. As art lovers can well imagine, the wonderful success of the first show leaves much anticipation for the second one.

India: New Installations Part II will feature works by Anita Dube and Subodh Gupta, and will feature an installation by the Raqs Meaid Collective, which includes artists Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta, whose collective media projects include film, photography and digital art.

Besides the current two exhibition locations, the Mattress Factory also has a distinctive café and gift shop. The amazing outdoor urban garden is itself an artistic installation. Created by environmental artist Winifred Lutz, it is part of the museum’s permanent collection. The café features marvelous lunches, light dinners and pastries, and great coffee and teas. The menu offers healthy, local and seasonal fare, and guests can bring their own bottle of wine for a $2.00 corkage fee. Beginning in September, the café will be offering entertainment of all kinds on the third Thursday of each month. The kick-off event features Seattle concert guitarist Damon Buxton. Damon will be premiering his brand new CD in the café.

The museum shop offers some amazing gifts that you won’t be able to find anywhere else in the region. There are unique items for the home and wonderful gifts for that hard-to-buy-for someone. You can come and dine in the café and visit in the shop without paying admission to the museum. But for a wonderful afternoon, you should see the exhibits, have lunch in the café and do a little shopping, too.

Mattress Factory 500 Sampsonia Way, Pittsburgh, PA. (412) 231-3169 Hours: Tues–Sat: 10-5, Sun: 1-5