New Installations, Artists in Residence: Boyle; Holland; McConnell; Mitchell; Peterson, Drain,… New Installations, Artists in Residence: Boyle; Holland; McConnell; Mitchell; Peterson, Drain, Brown; Reichlin; Sawyer and Yamamoto

The Mattress Factory

500 Sampsonia Way, North Shore

(412) 231-3169

Through June 27, 2004

Last Sunday, the Mattress Factory, a modern-art museum located in the Mexican War Streets on the North Side, unveiled eight new installations to the public. Places like the Mattress Factory prove that there’s a lot more to Pittsburgh than the Original Hot Dog Shop and the Steelers, if you only take the time to look.

For those not familiar with the Mattress Factory, describing it as a modern-art museum isn’t quite accurate. Founded in 1977, the Mattress Factory exhibits only installation art; each artist who contributes an installation must create it specifically for the space the Mattress Factory allots them. In other words, no traveling exhibits come to the Mattress Factory – each installation is a new and original work. While the artists who are chosen to create an installation for the Mattress Factory are working on their piece, the museum provides them with housing, a stipend and any materials they might need. You can imagine the kinds of crazy requests the museum staff gets – once, a Japanese artist requested 5,000 pounds of wax so he could carve a room out of it.

One of the new installations that displayed good use of space was the work of Ann Reichlin. She welded metal road-repair materials together and hung them from the ceiling. These hanging metal rectangles create interesting, almost maze-like structures for the viewer to walk through, and when the light hits this piece, it is especially beautiful.

Artist Rebecca Holland needed a lesson in candy making in order to complete her installation project, which is called “Glaze.” Her original plan was to cover the floor of her space, which is about 700 square feet, with apple-green Jolly Rancher candies. Unfortunately, the Jolly Ranchers didn’t react well to the humidity in the first-floor room. Holland had to turn to the Pittsburgh Culinary institute for help, and it was there that she learned about Isomalt, a type of sweetener used to make sugar-free candies that doesn’t break down as easily as regular sugar. She learned how to make candy from it, and the result is beautiful and a little bit creepy. The floor of the dim, gray, brick-walled room is covered in a thick layer of apple-green colored candy, and the color is reflected onto the back wall of the room.

Jeremy Boyle’s installation is his conception of ‘the perfect studio,’ and for the eight months this show is running, he will be using his studio and actually living in the museum in a separate bedroom downstairs Boyle was indeed there, working, when I walked in, and told me that he likes a very organized space to work in, but that he finds it difficult to maintain. He hopes that having his studio on display will motivate him. His studio truly is ideal – he seems to have thought of every last detail, down to a specially made sliding shelf he keeps his digital scanner on, so it doesn’t take up desk space. Boyle built all of the modular furniture in his studio, and said it took him about four weeks.

The last notable installation was Liza McConnells’. This piece is truly interactive, as you have to climb onto a treadmill and start walking to view it. As you walk, the lights that surround the treadmill go out and the wall in front of you becomes a screen onto which is projected a view of the night sky and a road, with orange cones on either side, that appears to move forward as you walk. You might think this image is a photograph that has been treated and projected onto the wall, but, in fact, it is a camera obscura device, and the artist used common materials like cotton balls to create the projected image.

Other new installations include a two-room project by Lynne Yamamoto that explores her Japanese-American heritage and her family’s experiences working on the Dole-owned pineapple plantations in Hawaii. Margo Sawyer created a beautiful installation of glass objects that are illuminated from the inside and gradually change color as you watch them in the dark room they are housed in. Curtis Mitchell’s installation is characteristic of his style – he damages everyday objects by burning or bleaching them and then sets about repairing them. Finally, Ara Peterson, Jim Drain and Eamon Brown worked together to create a large project that combines digital imagery with enormous, painted, three-dimensional objects.

This new show is truly extraordinary – it’s difficult to express in words the experience of viewing and actually being inside these installations. The Mattress Factory is a bit out of the way for most Pitt students, but the trip will be well worth it, and since this exhibition will be open until June 27, 2004, there is no excuse not to go experience it.