The Mattress Factory celebrates 40 years of Site-Specific Art
Watch this short documentary
By David Bernabo
Forty some years ago, Barbara Luderowski purchased the old Stearns & Foster mattress factory on Pittsburgh’s North Side and with a group of like-minded artists, started something new. What began as a co-op — “food eating five days a week, vegetarian, cooked by various individuals, a place to work, a place to live, to establish a community” — evolved into one of the most celebrated museums dedicated to site-specific installation art.
On the first day of 1982, the exhibition, Factory Installed: Michael Olijnyk, Diane Samuels, Athena Tacha, casually announced that the Mattress Factory was now dedicated to artist residencies in support of site-specific exhibitions. From there, the museum’s wonderfully thorough archive attests to the wide range of challenging and innovative art that has graced the museum’s walls, floors, ceilings, basement rooms, and air space, from Yayoi Kusama’s infinity rooms to James Turrell’s entrancing light and dark pieces to Meg Webster’s sculpted earth works.
This Friday, New Installations: 40th Year opens with exhibitions by returning artists, Vanessa German, David Ellis, David Pohl, Meg Webster, and Allan Wexler, and a large number of never-before-exhibited selections from Greer Lankton. The opening starts at 6pm and runs through 8pm.
In advance of the opening event, Recital sat down with President/Co-Director Barbara Luderowski and fellow Co-Director Michael Olijnyk to discuss the ethos of the museum, the first meeting with James Turrell, the appeal of site-specific work, and sacrificing one’s art practice to devote time to the museum.
As a result of making this video, a feature-length documentary of the Mattress Factory’s 40-year history was commissioned. Look for that film early in the new year!
