Family Day at the Mattress Factory - THIS SATURDAY!

Last month, I blogged about two Family Workshops held here at the Mattress Factory. The first, dealing with Mary Temple's diaristic art-making practice, was an engaging session designed to show families easy ways to incorporate art within their daily lives. The second workshop paired an exhibiting Mattress Factory artist (Gretchen Skogerson) with families who were interested in using light-sensitive materials to create one-of-a-kind artworks.



   



Our next family-friendly event takes place this Saturday from 11:00AM to 4:30PM. Family Day at the Mattress Factory will include hands-on activities including Pixel Pages, Flipbooks, and Gretchen Skogerson inspired Glow-in-the-Dark Drawings (images above). A guided tour will take place at 2:00PM. All Family Day activities are FREE with museum admission. I hope to see you and your family on Saturday!

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Posted by ANNA
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Some MFiConfess Videos from This Weekend

    

    

    

View all visitor-submitted confessions HERE.

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Posted by JEFFREY
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THADDEUS MOSLEY: SCULPTURE (STUDIO | HOME)

THADEUS MOSLEY: SCULPTURE (STUDIO | HOME)
April 4, 2009 - July 19, 2009
Opening Reception: Friday, April 3, 2009 [ ADD TO FACEBOOK ]

In a city like Pittsburgh that is steeped with tradition, oral histories become a unique view into the past. Stories told over generations are met with curiosity about places and people forever changed by time. One such storyteller is artist Thaddeus Mosley.

Beginning on April 4, 2009, the Mattress Factory will present THADDEUS MOSLEY: SCULPTURE (STUDIO | HOME), a solo exhibition highlighting both the professional and private life of sculptor Thaddeus Mosley. For the exhibition, Mosley’s complete artist studio and portions of his North Side home will be documented, transported and reconstructed within the Mattress Factory’s galleries. The exhibition will be on view through July 19, 2009.



Thaddeus Mosley is a native of New Castle, Pennsylvania, and has spent his adult life in Pittsburgh. After an enlistment in the Navy, he attended the University of Pittsburgh where he graduated with majors in English and Journalism. To support his family, he took a job with the postal service, a position he retained until his retirement in 1992. During the 1950s, Thad also worked as a journalist for the Pittsburgh Courier and various national magazines. This is the period during which his interest in carving and sculpture began.

“Thad’s sculpture obviously speaks for itself, but what really interested me during a site visit to his home were his personal collections and the stories he told about his life here in Pittsburgh,” says Michael Olijnyk, Co-Director of the Mattress Factory. “With this exhibition, we’re showcasing his sculpture, of course, but also Pittsburgh’s rich history told through Thad’s incredible voice.”

An opening reception for THADDEUS MOSLEY: SCULPTURE (STUDIO | HOME) will take place on Friday, April 3, 2009, from 6:00PM to 9:00PM. Admission is $10. Mattress Factory members, Pitt & CMU students (w/ I.D.) are always FREE.

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Posted by JEFFREY
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ARTFORUM Reviews PREDRIVE

Antoine Catala, Pumpkins (2008), DVD, 7 minutes, looped

PREDRIVE: After Technology
November 14, 2008 - April 5, 2009
Review by Alexander Keefe

This group exhibition of new-media art covers a wide terrain, ranging from rec-room psychedelia to neo-Op-art electronics. The eye-popping vitality of the former is evident in Jacob and Jessica Ciocci’s mixed-media installation The Dark Side of Light, 2008. Core members of Paper Rad, their approach is visually intense and eclectic, using rough juxtapositions of high and low technology in flashing tie-dye colors, furry stuffed animals, VHS-era video hacks, stoner jokes, and crudely pixelated pattern making.

Compared with this dizzying heterogeneity, Gretchen Skogerson’s Switch, 2008, works with a far simpler set of tools: A gently curved wall is hung with vertical threads and serves as a screen for a shifting set of powerfully physical fluorescent light fields, some of them magma hot, some icy cool.

Antoine Catala’s single-channel video Pumpkins, 2008, takes heavily processed footage of children playing Twenty Questions and echoes the game’s riddling ambiguity with digital visual distortion, their faces breaking and smearing into playfully grotesque abstraction. | CONTINUE READING |

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Posted by JEFFREY
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Sarah Oppenheimer to Speak at Carnegie Mellon University

THIS JUST IN: Sarah Oppenheimer, whose 610-3356 has been extended and is currently on display here at the Mattress Factory, will be giving a FREE and open-to-the-public lecture at Carnegie Mellon University on Tuesday, February 10th at 5.00PM. All the pertinent details can be found over on the CMU School of Art Website.


SARAH OPPENHEIMER
610-3356 (2008)
aircraft grade plywood, framing structure, view into neighboring yard across street

From the CMU School of Art's Website:

The focus of Sarah’s work is the feedback loop between constructed spaces and pedestrian motion. She studies how the built environment and human behavior reciprocally impact each other; most recently, the way that the visual progression of the human gaze is mapped by the contours of a given space. Sarah opens apertures in existing architectures, modifying the modular units that make up our standardized urban world. These apertures create new lines of sight within the space of display, and can function as both "holes" and "screens."

610-3356 continues to surprise museum visitors and was recently included in critic and blogger Tyler Green's 2008 Top Ten List. Life Without Buildings also posted an insightful review of the piece shortly after it opened here at the MF. I hope to see you at the talk!

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Posted by JEFFREY
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An Update on the MF iConfess Project

I thought I'd post an update about the MF iConfess project. The most natural way to do this isn't by writing a long blog post, so here it is...straight outta the MF safari. Pardon my giggling half-way through. Barbara Luderowski was peering into the confessional and making faces in an attempt to fluster me. It worked.



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Posted by JEFFREY
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We Put the M and the F in Super Bowl

Below are some photos sent to us from MF members who made the trip to Tampa to watch the Pittsburgh Steelers become 6-time Super Bowl champions. Did you sport the MF logo during the Super Bowl weekend? Send photos our way and we'll post them here.


On the plane from PIT to Tampa


Saturday night before the big game


Saturday night before the big game


Pre-Game


Pre-Game

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Posted by LINDSAY
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