Get personal with Warhol’s soup cans and an ex-mattress factory

Contrary to the beliefs of some students, there is much more to attending college than… Contrary to the beliefs of some students, there is much more to attending college than hanging out with your friends on or around campus. This is Pittsburgh! There’s a whole city out there, and it’s got loads more culture than even the best Oakland basement party.

The city is nearly bursting with places to enjoy the visual arts.

Even people who are only visiting Pittsburgh have to take a trip to The Andy Warhol Museum on the North Side. So if you’re going to be living here, it’s basically a sin not to go. Legendary pop artist Andy Warhol created iconic art that helped define an era. The museum, which is the largest museum in the world dedicated to a single artist, features the work of Warhol — such as his famous Marilyn Monroe silk-screens — and it also screens the films of Warhol and others on a regular basis.

Also of interest on the North Side is The Mattress Factory, a museum of contemporary installation art. If you’re not familiar with installation art, it deals with artists completely taking over and altering spaces (usually entire rooms at this museum) so that the viewer literally enters and interacts with the art. The possibilities are endless and always exciting. Both The Mattress Factory and The Warhol are free to students with Pitt IDs.

Other galleries, also featuring offbeat and current art, can be found all over the city. The South Side is home to The Brew House, a gallery for contemporary and local artists, as well as Silver Eye Center for Photography, which is, as you’d expect, a gallery devoted to exhibition, promotion and education concerning photography.

The Strip District has the Society for Contemporary Craft, which is dedicated to the exhibition of non-mainstream art created in media such as glass, clay, metal and found materials.

And deep in North Oakland you can find Pittsburgh Filmmakers, a fun-loving organization that shows film, video installation, photography, digital media and more, all of which are sure to be of interest to those with and without the artsy gene.

The Carnegie Museum of Art is always a good bet for the artistically inclined who don’t have time to traipse all over the city. Located on the corner of Pitt’s campus, this museum has halls and halls of art, past and present, with exhibits that change frequently. Perhaps most impressive in the art museum is the Hall of Architecture, a large room located just inside the museum’s entrance that has monumental reproductions of architecture from around the ancient world.

However, if you’re yearning for a full dose of traditional art, check out the Frick Art and Historical Center located in Point Breeze. The gallery there is known for displaying traveling exhibitions of genres like landscape and figure painting from the 18th to early 20th centuries. And visiting its location on the spacious, green Frick estate is like stepping outside the city to get your cultural fix.

If art isn’t your thing but you still love the museum scene, don’t worry. The Carnegie Museums offer something for the more historically or scientifically minded student. Connected to the Carnegie Museum of Art (which is also free with your Pitt ID) is the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. It has dinosaur bones, a dazzling hall of precious stones and minerals, a cultural/historical look at Egypt and much more. If you visit the Natural History and Art museum together, you’re bound to spend the better part of the day exploring the museums’ exhaustive exhibits.

On the North Shore, the Carnegie Science Center offers a planetarium, laser shows, virtual reality games and an Omnimax theatre, in addition to their riveting educational exhibits.

The Strip District has the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, Pennsylvania’s largest history center, which is devoted to the history and culture of Western Pennsylvania. The center has also recently added the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum to their complex.

With all of these options, you really have no excuse to hang out in your dorm or apartment all the time. This is, after all, The University of Pittsburgh. Get out there and enjoy the culture of our campus’ namesake.