What might a brick oven, seedlings, Engelbert Humperdinck, icons and a molecular model have in common? They're all components of various artworks in the latest incarnation of the engaging "Gestures" exhibition series at the Mattress Factory.
Eclectic expression risen from unharnessed imagination is a hallmark of the North Side museum. That characteristic swells in the "Gestures" shows, which frequently include participants who are not traditionally trained visual artists.
The oven, for example, is the centerpiece of "Bricks for Bread (The Pittsburgh Community Brick Oven Project)" by Ray Werner, a self-described "writer, baker, music maker." Werner, who built a similar oven in Braddock last year, envisions brick ovens spread throughout Pittsburgh neighborhoods, harkening back to a time when neighbors in ethnic communities baked bread together. Donate a brick and you can sign it in silver.
Upon entering the exhibition, one is aurally lured to the cellar by "Victoriana," an installation of manipulated found sound by composer R. Weis. It's surprising that the melodically pleasing, hour-long composition, which intensifies in speed and complexity, grew out of only 15 seconds of raw sound material (creaking and slamming doors) recorded in the artist's 19th-century Pittsburgh house.
The majority of the 19 exhibitors are visual artists, most notably Than Htay Maung, a Burmese installation and performance artist who makes his U.S. debut with "The Monument." He recently moved here with his wife, Khet Mar, the latest participant in the City of Asylum/Pittsburgh's writer residency program.
The distinguished work, which is both sobering and celebratory, comprises a several-foot-high tower formed of cubes made of folded newspaper pages. The tower stands within a circle anchored at four points by stacked papers and more cubes, an arrangement that calls to mind ancient sites that reference the four seasons or four compass directions. More cubes are arranged on the wall behind, the most prominent showing an image of President Obama on his 99th day in office. Other news images and stories are also highlighted.
The installation is on one hand a tribute to the role newspapers play in democratic societies, and to journalists who have been imprisoned or killed for doing their jobs. The repetitious cube folding was also a meditative way to exorcise the sadness the artist felt due to horrific world events.
Carin Mincemoyer's exceptional, cringe-inducing "Migrating Birds Mimicking the Structure of Polyethylene Molecules" uses pastel craft store birds to lure viewers to a consideration of the legacy of non-biodegradable synthetics.
Other pieces in the exhibition set up a dialogue between one another, and with the building itself, as with Rise Nagin's "unwritten" and "Apparition of Our Lady of Peace, Jacksonia Street, Pittsburgh" by Stephanie Flom and Peter Oresick. The former ethereal, the latter symbolic, the handsome works use different vocabularies to explore two aspects of spirituality. Both relate to William Anastasi's 1991 "Trespass," on long-term loan in the room they share.
Switch gears again upon entering Brett Yasko's elegant "For everything I've done and for everything I'll do," a love letter disguised as MTV, its passion made the more compelling by the unspoken presence of mortality. A reflective vinyl sentiment on the projection wall slips in and out of sight like memory, its message continuing 2,485 times on small slips of paper scattered on the darkened gallery floor (take one). The silvery letters, segmented like the facets of a disco ball, threaten to fade like moonlight.
Don't overlook Gregory Witt's magical, intimate "Electrical box" nearby.
For more than three decades, the internationally known museum has sustained its commitment to large-scale, site-specific installation art, generally created by artists in long-term residence. To stay fresh, it instituted the "Gestures" shows in 2001, featuring less time-intensive works -- "gestures" -- by regional artists.
Employing guest curators is another way to enliven the museum schedule, and the current exhibition was chosen, serendipitously, by Katherine Talcott. She was the first full-time curator of the Three Rivers Arts Festival, which continues through Sunday Downtown. During her tenure, from 2002 until 2007, Talcott organized praiseworthy annual shows that highlighted local artists, and instituted thought-provoking public art projects.
"Gestures: An Exhibition of Small Site-Specific Works" is a rich and invigorating gathering that reflects her thorough knowledge of the local creative community as well as her well-developed critical eye. Now administrator for the city of Ann Arbor, Mich.'s "Percent for Art Program," Talcott will return this summer to curate the 13th "Gestures."
There is much more to discover about this exhibition than fits on these pages, and one may well expect the next edition to similarly reward and challenge.
"Gestures" continues through June 21 at 1414 Monterey St. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays. Admission is $10, seniors $8, students $7, children under 6 and members free. Information: 412-231-3169 or http://www.mattress.org" target.
First Published: June 10, 2009, 8:00 a.m.
