PREVIEW // Art + Conversation

Anne Lindberg was inspired by a collaboration between composer Philip Glass and sculptor Richard Serra. The idea of marrying art and music inspired Anne and the museum to create a very special Art + Conversation program.

On Thursday, October 15th shift lens will be accompanied by a one-time-only performance by Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Cellist/Pittsburgh Piano Trio Founder Mikhail Istomin. Following, there will be a conversation between "Factory Installed" exhibition artists Anne Lindberg and Julie Schenkelberg where they will discuss their work and process in the lobby of 500 Sampsonia Way. There will be a cash bar and admission is pay-what-you-wish. The program is FREE for MF Members and students from Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh and Point Park University. Space is very limited! RSVP today: http://bit.ly/1UT1afB

Anne's piece Shift Lens, part of the "Factory Installed" exhibition, was in itself a performance creating its own music as it was being constructed.

"So there is a gesture moving in two directions and the piece is viewable from one side, the outdoors is on the other side... The thread is held taut with staples and the line, in terms of a process, the lines that make up the work are stitched or threaded back and forth between the walls as if you are stitching the architecture. There is a person at each wall wielding a staple gun and there is a runner or perhaps one of us stepping down and moving the thread so it is a performance of sorts when it is being made, it makes a little bit of noise. This sort of rhythm of drawing back and forth and that performative quality is really interesting to me."


Julie Schenkelberg is also a Mattress Factory artist whose piece The Color of Temperance: Embodied Energy is part of the "Factory Installed" exhibition. Julie describes her process of collecting materials to compose her piece and the narrative she tries to convey to the viewer.

"Sometimes I explain my pieces as if they are tattered manuals and pieces are discarded or missing and then we have these objects in front of us that we're unsure how to operate. So I operate them the way that I would imagine and therefor pieces of molding become structure for the room. Dishes become pieces that support a chair ... You walk in and it's completely chaotic and it is totally blended together as the same symphony and it becomes this quiet moment."