Downtown gallery shows what Pittsburgh is made of

Pittsburgh Now SPACE Gallery 812 Liberty Ave., Downtown Runs through June 13 Free 412-325-7723

Nestled in Downtown Pittsburgh, SPACE stands out among the buildings around it. Since its exterior is made almost entirely out of glass, people can peer in and see some of the art gallery’s latest showings. Its newest exhibition, Pittsburgh Now, encompasses every wall of the one-room venue, and the artists behind it have utilized everything from paper to marble for their showcased works.

Murray Horne, Pittsburgh Now’s curator, has been a curator for the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust for 12 years and has been involved with SPACE since its opening in 2003.

Horne said that SPACE differs from the other galleries he works with, 707 Penn and Wood Street galleries, because of its content and its size.

“SPACE traditionally hosts group shows by local and national artists,” he said. “Penn shows local art work like SPACE but is much smaller and usually has solo shows.”

Currently within SPACE, one wall is covered in black swirls and shapes that resemble machines or monsters of some kind, but this scene is only the backdrop for small, framed paintings. Each painting is filled with black paint and ink, making scenes of abstract human bodies while the addition of random drops of color counteract these dark characters.

Photographer Renee Rosensteel brings a more realistic outlook to the table with her set of photos labeled, “Circle of Truth.” Using action shots and portraits of cage fights all over the United States, she invites the viewer to enter these violent cages and the dangerous lifestyles of the fighters within them.

The up-close stills of bloodied, smiling men and ruthless, metal-enclosed wrestling offer a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most life-threatening sports around. On a plaque next to the photographs, Rosensteel tells her viewers, “As middle class Westerners, we aren’t confronted with the animal within unless we go looking for it. The guys in that cage don’t just go looking for the animal. They call it out.”

Using a more varied range of media, artist Philip Rostek creates abstract scenes, some of them with accompanying stories and meanings. One of Rostek’s works, a dark painting with a small yellow tiger, presents an imaginative translation of William Blake’s poem, “The Tyger.” Another one of his paintings, involving a black background covered with strips of white marble, resembles a lonely game board or maze, the single spot of color being the only player in the game.

By far the largest part of the exhibition is Deborah Hosking’s “One Hand Clapping,” an array of framed photographs that almost completely cover three walls of SPACE. These are not the images from Hosking’s camera, but instead “a process and series of e-mail ‘postcards’ that began in April 2005,” according to the artist.

The photos are scenes of everyday life, including trash dumps, landscapes, buildings and people, which have been contributed by many people. Hosking collected all of these images and pieced them together, allowing a person to browse the numerous photographs and see a description of life.

Near Hosking’s photos hang the works of Lowry Burgess, two very different paintings with an obvious connection between their subjects. “The White Lily” and “The White Lily Portal” are both depictions of a centralized flower, but the latter offers a much larger and more complex description.

“The White Lily Portal,” a giant painting scaling from floor to ceiling, looks like a cloudy sky surrounding a single white flower, yet the artist’s use of rainbow colors turns parts of the painting into little prisms.

Along with these photographs and paintings, SPACE showcases less conventional pieces. Angelo Ciotti’s works, which consist of coal, wood, moss, sandstone and steel, are simple clumps that offer a variety of colors because of their natural consistency.

Also spread out along the floor, one can find standing structures, each resembling a different object but made from the juxtaposition of everyday appliances.

According to SPACE’s Web site, “SPACE values the creation of new works in multi-disciplines, presentation of artwork to the broadest possible audience, inclusion of established and contemporary technologies and the promotion of local artists outside of the region.”

Horne believes Pittsburgh Now has received good feedback from SPACE’s audiences.

“We had 2,000 people attend SPACE’s opening night, which coincided with the Downtown gallery crawl,” he said, “and we continue to get visitors Tuesday through Saturday.”