Movin' and Shakin' at the MF

Whoever said the dog days of summer were supposed to be slow-paced and relaxing has obviously not spent much time around the MF! Things are moving along at break-neck speed here at the museum -- and that's just the way we like it. In six short weeks from now Pittsburgh will have hosted a monumental event for a city of our size (the G20 Economic Summit -- more on the MF's role in this below) and the Mattress Factory will have opened two new exhibitions. This pace is not for the weak of heart, so fasten your seat belt and hold on.

G20 Pittsburgh Summit
On September 24 + 25, the G20 Economic Summit will be held here in Pittsburgh. This is a pretty big deal for a city of our size. During these two days in September, millions of people around the world will be watching the proceedings of the summit against the backdrop of our city. Thousands of people (from credentialed media to peaceful demonstrators) will descend upon Pittsburgh in late September and we thought we'd give them a street-level view of the city produced by people on the ground.

So last week we (in collaboration with our good friends at deepLocal) launched http://myG20.org, a real-time crowd-curated guide to Pittsburgh. Anyone can participate through several different social media platforms. And if you're not a "My-Twitt-Flick-Face-Tuber," have no fear. We've created a simple web-form that will automatically post your message to the content stream.

In the first 90 minutes after we released the link to the MF Twitter Posse, more than 100 people posted to the site. Pretty cool. So cool, in fact, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette took notice. So check out the site, use it, tell your friends and we'll see how it pans out leading up to and during the G20 in September.

Greer Lankton: It's all about ME, Not You
Last week we also announced the addition of Greer Lankton’s It’s all about ME, Not You (1996) to the museum's permanent collection. First shown as part of a group exhibition at the museum in 1996, the large-scale installation was recently given to the Mattress Factory by the late artist’s family.

Greer Lankton devoted most of her artistic life to creating highly expressive mannequin-like figures with full make-up, wigs, jewelry, and clothing. Her figures populated her tiny studio/apartment in Chicago surrounded by a decorated tableau of stenciled walls, autobiographical drawings, shrines to the likes of Candy darling and Patty Smith, children’s toys, hundreds of fashion magazines, and books on Egon Schiele and other favorite artists. Modeled after her apartment, It's all about ME, Not You opens with a public reception on October 9, 2009.

LIKENESS (October 9,2009 - March 21, 2010)
Portraits are everywhere. They are in our wallets; on our computers, cell phones and desktops; on the walls of corporate offices, banks and schools. But what precisely is a portrait or image of likeness? How do artists’ methods and materials evolve as technology progresses with quickly? And in this age of user-generated content, who exactly is the artist?

LIKENESS is a group exhibition that aims to examine human depiction during a post-Warholian era in which new technology has played an influential role. It includes the work of artists Jim Campbell, Paul DeMartinis, John Herschend, Nikki S. Lee, Joseph Manino, Greta Pratt and Tony Oursler. Elaine A. King, who is a freelance critic and curator as well as a professor at Carnegie Mellon University teaching Art History/Theory/Museum Studies, will curate the exhibition. LIKENESS opens with a public reception on October 9, 2009.

POSTED BY JEFFREY Read All Posts by Jeffrey