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James TurrellCatso, Red (1967), 1994Drywall, paint, xenon projector Light is a material with a three-dimensional quality in this cross corner projection, from the first series of light works Turrell made as a student. Turrell has learned to carefully shape (sculpt) light so that it takes on an almost solid form. In Catso, a red cube appears to be suspended in the corner of a room.

Pleiades, 1983Drywall, paint, incandescent lightYou approach the gallery through an inclined corridor so dark that you are virtually without sight. At the top of the ramp, you sit in a chair and face blackness. After your eyes adjust, an amorphous sphere of grey-white, or perhaps red, begins to appear, more a presence than an object. As you look harder, the form becomes smaller. You turn away for a moment and back again. It grows and glimmers.

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But the source of light itself is constant and still.Pleiades is a Dark Piece where the realm of night vision touches the realm of eyes-closed vision, where the space generated is substantially different than the physical confines and is not dependent upon it, where the seeing that comes from 'out there' merges with the seeing that comes from 'in here,' where the seeing develops over and through dark adaptation but continues beyond it. It is the first piece in a series of works. While it relates to the last piece of the Mendota Stoppages, 1969-70, in that it develops over time, it is definitely a departure in that after the seeing develops, it is no longer static. The thing that gave me the idea to do this was the fact that I needed to work with very low levels of light for the night seeing in the crater piece. The last time that I had really worked in that arena was with the Mendota Stoppages where I had some very dark pieces that took a long time of dark adaptation, sometimes as much as fifteen minutes. When you actually had that seeing, though, the space that was

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generated was a static space – you saw it and could walk in it, but it didn't change. In this work, what is generated in you and what is actually out there become a little more equal.

Yayoi KusamaInfinity Dots Mirrored Room, 1996glass, Formica, lights, decals

Repetitve Vision, 1996glass, Formica, black light, decals

Yayoi Kusama currently lives in Tokyo. Kusama’s lifetime work has been characterized by paintings, sculpture, installations and happenings*, utilizing dots, netlike patterns and compulsively repeated shapes. She began her career as a painter, had various group and solo exhibitions in Japan, before moving to New York in 1958. As an active member of New York’s avant-garde, she staged numerous, well-publicized happenings to which she invited the public

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and the press. At these happenings, she painted dots on herself, artists, friends and the public.Yayoi Kusama’s installation “Infinity Dots Mirrored Room” is entered through two black painted doors. Upon entering the rooms as the doors are closed the viewer is in a dark room with mirrored walls on all four sides and ceiling. The ceiling contains recessed black light. The floor is white with small, medium, and large multi-colored dots placed sporadically throughout. The mirrored walls and ceiling reflect the dots, floor, recessed lighting and the viewer itself extending the allusion of an infinite reflection.Yayoi Kusama’s installation “Repetitive Vision,” is entered through two mirrored doors from Kusama’s installation “Infinity Dots Mirrored Room.” The doors open into a 10-foot long hallway with black walls, floor and ceiling. There is an open doorway at the end of the hall that reveals a brightly lit room with mirrored walls and ceiling. The floor is white with small, medium, and large neon orange circles. Placed in the room are three, nude female mannequins spray-painted with black wigs all spray painted white.

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Neon orange dots are placed sporadically on the bodies. Each mannequin is standing centrally placed in the room. Five white lights are recessed in the ceiling in a checkerboard pattern of the nine large mirrored tiles that make up the ceiling.*Happenings- public art events involving the participation of several people in various activities such as performance, poetry, music and other art forms.Supported by a grant from The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission © 2007 Mattress Factory

Winifred LutzGarden, 1993The three-quarters of an acre space adjacent to 500 Sampsonia Way is a living work of art. Constructed of natural and manmade elements that reveal the area’s layered natural and architectural history, this site-specific installation allows viewer to experience the work’s unique features from multiple levels and vantage points. By the time Philadelphia-based

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environmental artist Winifred Lutz began work on this permanent installation in 1993, she had already studied the site for five years. She used information she uncovered—both historical and physical—to design a garden that responds to and incorporates the history and attributes of the site, including the foundation of a building that had burned down years ago. In the late 1800’s, Italian immigrants settled in the neighborhood surrounding the Mattress Factory; many worked in agricultural jobs, including food production and cooking, and as grocery store operators and vegetable hucksters. The history of the Mattress Factory and Lutz’s Garden reflects this cultural context.

As a result of studying the site over several years, she planned a work that responded to and incorporated the particular natural and built attributes of the site. She established public and private spaces with various physical elements: stones individually selected from a western Pennsylvania quarry, a tall grass enclosure

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surrounding a single chair, indigenous wild flowers, a wood pergola, a concrete trough filled with flowing water and an amphitheater built from the remains of the steward Paper Factory burnt down in 1963. To focus the viewer’s vision, she has designed a series of apertures framing specific vistas. Her goal is to create a sanctuary within an urban environment without isolating it form the community.

Describing the installation, she says, “The garden is designed to incorporate the vestiges of the burnt factory, to provide a quite refuge in the tradition of old European walled gardens, to retain site-memory, and to provide visual interest to passersby. Native plants have been selected for their low maintenance and hardiness in harsh conditions, but also to provide bird habitat.”

Bill WoodrowShip of Fools: Discovery of Time, 1986metal cabinets, existing kitchen, wood, paintThe artist left the turn-of-the-century kitchen in its

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worn state with peeling paint, neglected wood and antiquated fixtures. He added forms, cut from old metal cabinets.You open the door into a room frozen in time, to see a disaster. The floor has been raised to show the effects of a mounting flood.From a tap made of an overturned gas mantle heater, liquid gold has flowed, filling the kitchen, and has petrified. A metronome, fashioned from part of a cabinet to which it still clings, stands as a symbol of time. Emerging from the pantry is the front half of a large water buffalo with a ship’s model caught in its horns.A remnant from the cabinet, out of which the horns were cut sticks up through the gleaming surface like the fin of a shark. An unshaded bulb casts harsh light over all this.

A CollaborationHandrail, 1993aluminum, water, pump

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The handrail on either side of the staircase contains an aluminum trough with a narrow stream of water running from the third to the second floor.The handrail is the only remaining aspect of a larger installation produced by this group of artists. A Collaboration, 1993, included, among other things, a periscope (on street level) that provided a constant view of a waterfall, a resin door (in a gallery on the second floor) that led not to another room, but rather allowed light to enter the gallery. In yet another space within the building, a steel railing focused viewers’ attention on a horizon line set into the wall, which emanated the smell of freshly cut grass. The sounds of a waterfall filled another interior space, while blinds covering windows displayed actual photographic images of the area outside of the building and scenes that might be viewed from the window itself.Artists: Monica M. Bock Mary Carlisle Cathy Lynn Gasser Melissa Goldstein Sandrine Sheon Catherine Smith

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• Supported by a grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission © 2007 Mattress Factory

Sarah Oppenheimer 610-3356, 2008aircraft grade plywood, framing structure, view into neighboring yard across street 4th FloorSarah Oppenheimer opens apertures in existing architecture, modifying the recognizable modular units (such as rooms) that make up our standardized built world. Interested in the way that people navigate their environments through both familiar bodily experience and with the aid of navigational tools, like maps, Oppenheimer’s works alter the visitor’s experience and perception in the gallery space.For this installation, Oppenheimer created an opening in the floor of a small gallery on the fourth floor. This is the first time in the museum’s 35-year

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history that an artist has reconfigured the building structure in this way.This aperture, or “wormhole,” as Oppenheimer refers to the type of hole she created, offers a new line of sight within the exhibition space and functions as both a hole and a screen, directing the viewer’s gaze down and out the third floor window. The hole creates a disorienting sense of an impossible proximity between the fourth floor and the external world outside.The space of display—the museum gallery—is transformed from a container for specific objects into a lensed view of the outside world. The fourth floor gallery floor and the third floor window are part of the work. The shaped hole in the interior floor extends through the armature, framing a vista out the side of the building. In this way, Oppenheimer has created a zone for pictorial reflection. The view of the outside world is framed and is accepted as the work.Oppenheimer alters our vision, alters our expectations. Like a film director she directs our gaze

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and moves it through her framing device. While everyone will have a different view through the hole, depending on their position in the gallery space and depending on their height, the viewer follows the sight line to see the view into a neighboring yard across the street.The title of the work, 610-3556, is derived by reference to a typology or classification system created by the artist that describes, in graphic form, how the hole is perceptually perceived and the materials used to create it.

Dara Meyers-KingsleyIndependent Curator

Rolf JuliusRed, 1996Two speakers, suspended from the ten-foot ceiling by thin wire, hang just inches from the ground. They are coated with a brilliant, powdery, orange-red pigment that vibrates with the pulsing sound emanating from the speakers.

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Music for a Garden, 1997Julius created this work as a site-specific sound piece that enhances the visitor’s experience of a space in the Mattress Factory Garden, by Winifred Lutz. A mix of natural and electronic sounds is broadcasted from speakers, which are placed high on the museum’s wall facing the Garden. The speakers are angled in such a way that the visitor hears sounds at different places. The sounds’ pitches and volumes are modulated to sit at the edge of conscious awareness, subtly affecting one’s experience of the site.“[In Julius’s work] three senses are involved: hearing, seeing, and touching...Although he shows us how closely the senses of hearing, seeing, and touching are related to each other; he does not follow the kinesthetic theories which state that each sound is associated with a particular colour. Julius’s music does not work like that. For him, a sound is a sound and colour is colour. However, when the senses

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‘accidentally’ work beautifully together, the work is a complete success. Instead of saying ‘accidentally,’ Julius would probably prefer to say that the senses ‘inevitably’ work together.”

— Shi Nakagawa, Musicologist and close friend of Rolf Julius

Ash, 1991terra cotta flower pots, speakers, ash, recorded sound

At first, you might think “Ash” is just two red clay flower pots filled with dirt. But as you watch and listen you begin to notice something else.The artist, Julius, has recorded ordinary sounds – like birds, radiators or crickets – and patched them together into a collage of sound. This “music” plays from speakers inside the flower pots. They are covered with an orangey ash (from German coal-burning fireplaces) that seems to be dancing. It is as though the ash is making the sound “visible.” It

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moves differently with every sound.Julius’ medium, the material he used to make this installation, is sound. He uses his ears and a tape recorder to collect different sounds and make them into something else by combining them with objects he chooses just as carefully.

William AnastasiUNTITLED (Calisthenic Series), Wall drawing after DaVinci’s Vitruvius Man, October 4, 1997, 16:02-16:48graphite on wallThis work is located in the second room of Alan Wexler’s “Bed Sitting Room for an Artist in Residence,” on the wall between the room’s old fireplace and the window. Artist William Anastasi picked up a stone from the sidewalk outside, and instead of drawing on the wall, he rubbed and scratched at the surface until some of the paint – and even some of the wall itself – came off. Anastasi calls this kind of drawing a “wall removal.” To Anastasi,

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the process of creating a drawing is as important as the end result.Anastasi has been creating timed drawings while blindfolded for close to forty years. The radius of this circular wall drawing is equal to the artist’s reach and refers to the relationship of the human body to geometry, illustrated by Leonardo DaVinci’s Vitruvius man, whose height and arm span define the measure of a circle and a square.When Anastasi took art classes at school, he learned to draw the conventional way-with his eyes open, looking at the paper. He wondered what his drawings would look like if he didn’t use his eyes, so he began to experiment. Anastasi discovered that he likes drawing this way and even likes the drawings themselves better than when he looks at what he is doing. Sometimes Anastasi ties a piece of cloth over his eyes like a blindfold and takes a pencil in each hand. He then draws for a specific length of time, and refers to these works as “timed blind drawings,” like those he created at the Mattress Factory. For one drawing, called “April 15, 1989, 32 minutes, 4B,”

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Anastasi held a 4B pencil in each hand. With his eyes covered, he moved from one end of the room to the other for exactly 32 minutes, marking the wall in big, sweeping movements as far as his arms could reach.Supported by a grant from The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission © 2008 Mattress Factory

Allan Wexler Bed Sitting Rooms for an Artist in Residence, 1988drywall, wood, paint, carpet“The Mattress Factory acquired a rundown row house near its original building and commissioned me to design a living space for its Artist-in-Residence program. The space consisted of two rooms that might need to function in a variety of ways: for one occupant who wants a sitting area in one room and a single bed in the other, for a couple who want a sitting area in one room and a double bed in the other room, for two people who each want privacy

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with a single bed and/or a sofa in each room, and for a person who wants an empty room for working and a bedroom.”Two rooms are connected by a flexible, functional installation where visiting artists live while they work on their own installations in other spaces. The space is delineated by color – gray carpet, pale blue on walls, doors, and into the hall. The opening in the wall between the two rooms through which everything shared can pass – light bulbs, beds, and arm rests – is painted bright red. The two single beds roll through the wall for sleeping or sitting. They can be positioned to make sofas, a king-sized bed, or separate beds in each room. Back cushions reverse to headboards.“I superimposed a 13’ 8” x 19’ x 8’ volume into the middle of the two-room space, the center wall dividing this new ‘room’ in half. Everything within this volume was treated as new construction, with blue walls and gray carpet. The areas outside of this ‘room’ were left as is and completely covered with white paint. The wall dividing my ‘room’ has a series

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of openings through which the furniture components can partially or fully pass through: two mattresses roll through on wheels, two light bulbs rotate through the wall and can be used in either space, the sofa back (cushion)/ night table swivels around and locks into place when needed to complete a bed or sofa, the sofa arms slide through to complete the sofa.• Supported by a grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission © 2007 Mattress Factory

Jene HighsteinUntitled Installation, 1986Concrete over wood and wire armatureA form of smoothly troweled, unfinished concrete occupies most of the room. It is compressed between ceiling and floor, swelling out around its middle. “My sculpture is centered on a continuous search for new forms. Since the work is not derived from images, but is rather an evolution of abstract forms which trigger associations with nature, I am always

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interested to find confirmation of my point of view in man-made and naturally formed objects.”

“Stone age tools, ceremonial objects, and idols fascinate me and are among the source of materials for my work. The content of my work is not so much nature abstracted, but a form which is evolved in relation to nature and which carries with it natural associations.”

“Because of this, my work makes use of natural materials, as they point the way towards the evolving form, and provide a resistance which generates tension. I continue to use man-made materials, such as concrete and iron, because they make it possible to develop new forms quickly, while retaining the feel of a natural material.”“I use a series of irregular curves to make up the form of my fabricated sculptures. Since the form is made up of these curves, the sculptures seem to resemble forms found in nature: i.e. form one point of view the work may look like a natural rockform,

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from another an overgrown vegetable, and from another a surfacing whale. The images shift as the viewers change their point of view. I usually try and make sculptures that maximize these associations, although sometimes it is more powerful to limit them. But these are abstract works, they are not reductions from natural forms.”

Supported by a grant from The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission © 2007 Mattress Factory

DAVID BOWENSPACEJUNK, 2016

aluminum, plastic, electronics, twigs, data

The 50 twigs in this installation point in unison in the direction of the oldest piece of human-made space debris currently above the horizon. The debris being

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tracked is comprised of spent rocket bodies, parts from defunct satellites, and wayward tools launched in missions as far back as 1958. When the piece of debris being tracked drops below the installation’s horizon, the twigs go to a rested downward pointing position and await the next debris to appear. The composition is continually changing as it tracks the oldest discarded objects orbiting the earth that enter its point of view.

David Bowen is a studio artist and educator whose work explores intersections between natural and mechanical systems. With robotics, custom software, sensors, tele-presence and data, Bowen constructs dynamic installations that interface with the physical and virtual world. The devices he constructs often play both the roles of observer and creator, providing mechanical perspectives of dynamic situations and living systems. The relationships he constructs create a dissonance that leads to incalculable, unpredictable, and changeable outcomes. The resulting phenomenological outputs are

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collaborations between the natural form or function, the mechanism and the artist.

David Bowen’s work has recently been featured in group exhibitions at Eyebeam, NY; Centre for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB); ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe; The Cranbrook Museum of Art, Bloomfield Hills; Fundación Telefónica, Madrid; The Seoul Museum of Art; Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz; Intercommunication Center (ICC), Tokyo; and one person exhibitions at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Laboratoria Art & Science Center, Moscow; and Vox Populi, Philadelphia. Bowen is a recent recipient of a McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship and in the past has received awards from the Japan Media Arts Festival, Ars Electronica and the Vida Art and Artificial Life international competition. Bowen is currently an associate professor of Sculpture and Physical Computing at the University of Minnesota, Duluth.

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LAUREN KALMANBut if the Crime is Beautiful... (Strangers to the Garden), 2016

brass, furniture, inkjet prints

But if the Crime is Beautiful... (Strangers to the Garden) responds to architect Adolf Loos’ 1910 lecture Ornament and Crime, where he proposes that ornament is regressive, primitive and that, in (his)

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contemporary society, only criminals and degenerates are decorated (this includes women). Loos’ writings on architecture and functional art helped to define the principals of the Modern architecture and design movements. The influence of these movements permeates the contemporary built environment and therefore impacts our psychological and bodily relationship to space and objects.

Though Loos’ philosophies have been critiqued for decades, we continue to live in environments where Modernist constructions remain, and Modernist design objects have morphed into coveted icons of status, aligning the owner with the taste level of an educated or elite class.

The iconic furniture in (Strangers to the Garden) represents this Modernist lineage. In this installation the decorative metal Kudzu leaves contrast the male dominated Modernist aesthetic and its utopian values of minimalism and functionality. The color white in this work is a symbol of restraint and intellectual

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control, a color historically used by oppressive entities, including the Fascists, as a symbol of superiority, purity, and control.

This work utilizes the political power of a craft vocabulary with an emphasis on decorative metalsmithing and gold. In recent history, craft has been theorized as a medium that has remained vital outside of the white, male, Euro-centricity of the contemporary art world. Crafts are often conceptualized as being in the realm of the other, domestic, social, corporeal, and female. 1Kudzu is an invasive species. It overtakes native trees and brush, coating them with a new skin of lush green leaves. The kudzu in this work serves as crafted decoration, interrupting the pure white furniture. These golden colored leaves play on the common association between the feminine, the body, decoration, and crafts.

The images house the bodies notably absent from the Modern seating. The juxtapositions between

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figures and objects, along with the groupings of images, point to a variety of historical, political, and social sources like religious iconography, and vernacular images of pleasure, power, and control. Inevitably the nude bodies in this work call upon constructions of identity and the complicated politics surrounding gender, race, and power as related to the systems underlying the built environment. 1Lechner, Jenna. “One of Portland's Most Important Art Spaces Is Closing. Now What?” the Portland Mercury. Mar. 16, 2016. Web

Lauren Kalman is a visual artist whose practice is invested in contemporary craft, video, photography and performance. Through her work she investigates beauty, adornment, body image, and the built environment. Raised in the Midwest, Kalman completed her MFA in Art and Technology from the

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Ohio State University and earned a BFA with a focus in Metals from the Massachusetts College of Art.

Kalman exhibits and lectures internationally. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Museum of Contemporary Craft, Museum of Arts and Design, Cranbrook Art Museum, Contemporary Art Museum Houston, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Mint Museum, deCordova Museum, and the World Art Museum in Beijing, among others. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and the Detroit Institute of Art.

She has been awarded residencies at the Bemis Center, the Australian National University, the Corporation of Yaddo, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Brush Creek Arts Foundation, Haystack, and Santa Fe Art Institute. She has received Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, Puffin Foundation West and ISE Cultural Foundation Emerging Curator grants.

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She has taught at institutions including Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design. Currently she is an assistant professor at Wayne State University

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KEVIN CLANCYIRIS_SIRI, 2016

dichroic window film, US currency, custom fabricated cash cube, one way mirrors, mirrors, laptops, resin cat figures, USB LED lights, iPad, custom tablet interface, plastic, copper tape, aluminum, motor, electronics, sound

IRIS_SIRI is a series of new works that explore the utopic and dystopic potential of the Internet, the omnipresent spectacle of screen time, the mirage of capital, and the effects of rapid technological

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acceleration on the human species. The title is a palindrome that references Iris, the goddess of the rainbow, and Siri, the goddess of the smart phone. With these works, I aim to embrace both utopia and oblivion, approaching the complexity and messiness of our current moment with humor, beauty, and a critical undertone.

Each window of the space is covered with dichroic window film, which simultaneously floods the interior with vibrant gradient shifts and provides a prismatic lens to view the outside world. The saturation, light level, and gradient shift will change over the course of each day as the sun shifts position in the sky and weather conditions change. This atmospheric light shift alters and heightens our perception, not only of the works in the installation, but of the world we will return to. Other worlds are possible, other worlds are necessary.

Resin cats sit perched upon laptops obscuring hypnotic cascades of infinitely accumulating browser

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windows. The cat is the spirit animal of the Internet and the primary symbol for our culture of distraction. A free and open Internet, like all forms of communication technology before it, has the revolutionary potential to educate, agitate, and organize the masses. In counterpoint, systems of power seek to use the spectacle of the screen to distract us and manufacture consent. Will the revolutions be digitized? Will the revolutions be monetized? Or will the revolutions simply disappear from our feeds?

I have automated a capacitive replica of my hand to scroll infinitely on an iPad in a disembodied drone. We are entering a new era of perpetual screen time. We are always on, always connected, and rapidly merging with our devices. Our phones are quickly becoming the most ubiquitous and intimate objects in our lives. We scroll habitually, often loosing sight of what we were actually searching for. What are we searching for? What void are we attempting to fill?

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A dark pool of money circulates into infinity within the mirrored confines of a custom fabricated cash cube. This work explores the historic levels of wealth inequality we are experiencing and the mirage of capital. Money is used as a lure to keep the people at the very bottom of the very steep pyramid focused on climbing upward toward an unreachable peak. In this work, we have a glimpse into unfathomable wealth, but it is an illusion, a cheap trick of smoke and mirrors, and we are always locked out.

Audio by Babyteeth, custom iPad interface by Chris Perrone, browser window animations in collaboration with Nate Lorenzo.

Kevin Clancy is an interdisciplinary artist who creates accumulative process-based installations, participatory experiences, and nomadic social spaces that provide momentary glimpses into utopic possibilities. He has exhibited work at Keleketla! Library, Johannesburg; VIVO Media Arts Centre; Vancouver; Flux Factory, New York; The Children's

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Museum, Pittsburgh; ILLUMINUS, Boston; and Mobius, Boston. He holds a BFA from the Studio for Interrelated Media at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. He has been awarded the Morton R. Godine Travel Fellowship, the Artist Opportunity Grant from the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, and the Renna Arts Scholarship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

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WENDY JUDGE

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MOUNTAIN, 2016

wood, foam, plastaline, paint, sand, concrete glue and lighting

From the Middle Ages through the 17th century, mountains were often regarded as inconvenient, aesthetically repellant, and dangerous, not only to the body but also to the soul. Poets of the time described them as warts, wens, blisters, and pustules that ruin the face of nature. It probably would have suited their thinking to have them taken down or flattened out in any way possible. Having these eyesores razed to the ground would provide unobstructed views. Such mountains are being obliterated today as overburden to coal.

Part of my work looks at the anomalous within the landscape, the blip or interruption in one’s understanding of a place. In this case my focus is on the disappearance and shifting of land and the removal of the tops of mountains.

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The tops of more than 500 mountains have been removed from the 480 million year old Appalachian range. My understanding of this process comes through Stanley Heirs Park, West Virginia, and the now moribund Kayford Mountain.

I work through sculpture, drawing, and model-making isolating tracts of land from their surroundings, looking to present the spectator with the most authentic experience possible of a place while making the journey from afar.

“Cover the window, please. These mountains give me no ideas.’’

My practice is committed to armchair travel and the authentic experience, the touristic frontier, and the anomalous within the landscape. My projects are about journeys never actually taken, or based upon hearsay.

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Drawn from someone else’s tales as well as someone else’s research, the subjects are factually disconnected, hinged together across territories by the literary and the cinematic. My work questions what is meant or understood as “real,” in the same terms as Franz Kafka’s Amerika, where the author wrote without ever having visited the country in question. Indeed, so armed with unsubstantiated evidence of a place, we may find that the armchair experience and third-hand information is at least of as much practical use as first-hand experience in understanding any contemporary reality.

E M Forester wrote in The Machine Stops (1909) of a place where machines had taken the place of the general business of every day life and the natural earth had become redundant, even as a place to contemplate and refresh the mind:

Beware of first-hand ideas do not really exist. They are but the physical impressions produced by life and fear, and on this gross foundation who could erect a

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philosophy? Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from that disturbing element - direct observation.

Dublin-based Wendy Judge’s installations explore armchair travel and journeys never taken. She studied at Dun Laoghaire College of Art and Design, Dublin, and the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York. She has exhibited her work throughout Ireland and the UK, including the National Gallery of Ireland, and the Tate Modern, London; and internationally at Rawson Projects, Brooklyn, and CSV Center, New York.

Vanessa Sica + Chris KasabachUnbrella (2009)nylon, metal, plastic, paint”Asked to take inspiration from the Mattress Factory’s annex gallery, we entered the 2nd floor apartment and recalled our first experience seeing Alan Wexler’s “Bed Sitting Rooms for an Artist in

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Residence” almost 20 years ago as design students. The multi-functional bed/sofa vibrates between absurdity and brilliance, efficiency and fun.”

The Unbrella comes from this same place -- a utilitarian knee-slap for the artist in residence who may have arrived in Pittsburgh ill-prepared for the weather. The Unbrella functions indoors as a bright soft light but outdoors as a fully lit umbrella. To use, simply twist the Unbrella into the socket and pull the raindrop to light the room. The room also charges the Unbrella’s battery. Twist out to take to the streets, lighting your way on a dark, rainy day.

Vanessa and Chris have a broad range of experience merging the fields of art, design and technology. Their work in healthcare, housewares, fashion and the arts has been recognized by the awards, museums and publications that set the standard in design and business including the IDSA-International Design Excellence Awards and Medical Design Excellence Awards. Their work has been featured at

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the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Vitra Design Museum, and as part of artist Mariko Mori’s Venice Biennale exhibition.

Dennis MaherA Second Home (2016)

"A Second Home" transforms the Mattress Factory row house at 516 Sampsonia Way into a mysterious wonderland that cleaves, intermingles, and collages a house’s physical and metaphysical counterparts. Saturated with construction materials, furnishings, toys, architectural models, video projections and audio elements, the resulting immersive environment—encompassing all three floors of the building—fosters the emergence of a radically interior world: one that dreams of memories that it has never had, conjures the places that it has always wanted to be, and draws its own magic out of the grains of woodwork.

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The fragments that compose the installation appear simultaneously as suspended in time and as continuously evolving, while the multitude of layers, assembled views and variously scaled vignettes coalesce in ways that parallel the construction of the psyche. While synthesizing tools, devices and artifacts from a past that is both known and unknown, “A Second Home” gives these components a new context in the present and projects them forward into the future.

Aspects of the house will continue to transform over the next 2 years, with projects realized in collaboration with the Mattress Factory's education department and involving students of architecture from University at Buffalo and Carnegie Mellon University.

"A Second Home" features unique contributions from four Pittsburgh area artists whose work engages the construction of environments--Miriam Devlin, Kate Joyce, Michael Koliner and Racheljoy Rodas--as well

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as special projects by Daniel Salomon and Cameron Neuhoff, furniture elements by the Society for the Advancement of Construction Related Arts (SACRA), and a soundscape composed for and from the house by Dubravka Bencic and Kevin Bednar.  In addition, the house's walls are enlivened and enriched by extraordinary objects culled from the private collections of the Mattress Factory's original inhabitants, co-directors Barbara Luderowski  and Michael Olijnyk.

Construction assistance for this project has been provided by Scott Bye. 

Special thanks to Barbara Luderowski, Michael Olijnyk, Owen Smith, Adam Welch, Nate Lorenzo, Kevin Clancy, Mattie Cannon, Anna-Lena Kempen, Chuck Schmidt, Elizabeth Saleh, the Mattress Factory Board of Directors, staff and museum members.

Generous support provided by: ARAD, an Anonymous Donor, The Benter Foundation, Culture Ireland, Foster

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Charitable Trust, The Heinz Endowments, National Endowment for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the Roy A. Hunt Foundation.

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