FACTORY DIRECT: PITTSBURGH

One could say it's just "another brick in the wall", just like any other one, moreover focused on Pittsburgh's industrial past. But it's not only this.

The reasons are #1 the location, #2 the exhibition. Both transformed our lunch break in something definitely interesting and new.

Today I'll talk about "Factory Direct: Pittsburgh" held at the Guardian Self Storage along Liberty@29th, but organized by the Andy Warhol Museum.

Great location, this old building restored to be a storage. It is immediately ready to be re-converted to offices or housing, whenever the occasion comes, thanks to the maintaining of original (wooden!!!!!) floors and smart management of the internal space. The downright storage part is all about metal freight boxes that work as rooms filled with clients' stuff, inserted in each floor. The sixth floor, though, has been kept empty and recently adapted to guesting exhibitions. Very top floor, wonderful view of the city,  abundant light and plenty of art. Great combination of container and content. 

And the content is pretty interesting. I would even say it's another proof that Pittsburgh does it better, when it comes to sponsor art and create connections between public and private (and this happens very often, not only in the art-world). 

14 artists, related to PGH because of their birth or current residence, were invited to create something deeply artistic, but rooted in the industrial history of Pittsburgh. 

From the official website: 

Factory Direct: Pittsburgh artists worked closely with the management teams and factory workers within their host facilities to plan and execute a new work of art based on the factory’s history, technologies, materials, and/or processes. Factory Direct: Pittsburgh artists are Chakaia Booker, Dee Briggs, Thorsten Brinkmann, Jeanette Doyle, Todd Eberle, Fabrizio Gerbino, Ann Hamilton, William Earl Kofmehl, Ryan McGinness, Mark Neville, Sarah Oppenheimer, Edgar Orlaineta, ORLAN, and Tomoko Sawada.  Dee Briggs, Fabrizio Gerbino, and William Kofmehl are working local artists.  Participating factories include ALCOA, Ansaldo STS USA (formerly Union Switch and Signal), Bayer, Body Media, Calgon Carbon Corporation, Construction Junction, Forms and Surfaces, Heinz, PPG Industries, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Robotics Institute at Carn

egie Mellon University, and TAKTL.

The result of this collaboration is a collection of pieces related both to Pittsburgh industrial soul and to Andy Warhol's life and work. This makes sense, because Mr Warhol was way obsessed with production and consumption of goods. He spent part of his artistic life working with industrial goods, in a "factory", where all his superstars where nothing more than a product of his artistic work. Even if he has often been presented as a passive spectator of what was going on around him, the fact that he drove crazy people (poor Edie above all) around him, means that he was somehow part of this productive system, kind of a furnace were all his friends were forged and "produced". Wilde made his life a piece of art and Warhol made his life a piece of industry, subtly psychological rather than merely physical. This double aspect of his life creates an interesting triangle between life-art-production that the presentation at the guardian Self Storage well reflects. And Pittsburgh as a city reflects that as well, having been able to shift his attention from industry to art, and -with this shift- changing everyone's life. 

On today's Pittsburgh Post Gazette I found two reviews about the exhibition. One looks for a plausible explanation for Andy's obsession with Campbell's soup cans and showing an amazing sketch by Mrs Julia Warhola. It seems searching for that in "Factory Direct: Pittsburgh" and I believe it's the wrong place, though. 

The other, short text and big pics, presents the exhibition itself, with artists' bios and presentation. 

(art work by Fabrizio Gerbino: Purge)

Pittsburgh is now trying, slowly and according to its priorities, to focus on sustainability and I am deeply convinced that this is a further step of the same "walk" towards prosperity, a walk that started with its industrial development. We all know that pollution comes mainly from industries (PGH knows this well) and, reasonably, next step is being more sustainable. Art can definitely help this issue, linking the public to the private once again.

It is my hope that the next stop of the "Factory Direct" could be an even-more-sustainable-Pittsburgh, supported by a more conscious industrial panorama.