Associated Artists of Pittsburgh goes 102th!

There is something special at the Carnegie Museum of Art, that makes it one of the most interesting museums in what I call the 1.5-hours-NYC-fly-zone. I am pointing this out because I do believe that the quality of the CMOA equalizes the one of the most popular museums in the Big Apple.

Coming from Europe and from Italy, I was pretty satisfied with my experience of art and museums (even if barely bearing the fact that France "stole" a lot of pieces from us, but that's History).

Indeed, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the CMOA in Pittsburgh guests some great pieces from each artistic style or era. For sure the most popular pieces are elsewhere in Europe or in the US, but I can assure you'll learn more about any art style and tendency in Pittsburgh than in Paris.

An example above all: the great collection of Impressionists, in Pittsburgh, is absolutely amazing, a true treasure.

But apart from the high level of the CMOA collections, the thing that makes it special is the great ability to always include contemporary art that learns from the past. Because that is the proper use of any artistic or historic heritage: learning from that.

Pittsburgh has a long tradition in innovation. The artists that were selected for the 102nd exhibition (yes, that is 102!) of Associated Artists of Pittsburgh show that they studied the past and carefully watched around themselves. Then they applied their skills to create something absolutely contemporary, meaningful, interesting.

image from the CMOA website. Original caption says:

Erika Osborne, Homage to Converse Basin, charcoal on grape stakes, Courtesy of the artist

Interesting, in this exhibition, is the way each artist interpreted a theme, in my opinion, and an era. From room to room, you can see pieces that dialogue with the past, but talking about today. There could be a reminiscence of the past in the aesthetic or technique, but then the matter is "our". 

During my visit, I loved in particular some sculptures that were displayed. They were really "making a space" in the space of the museum. 

But I also loved a video, about Andy Warhol, that to me seems so in the right place, in the right moment, in the right format. It's all about Andy and our daily "pop art", that is coming directly from Mr Warhol. It really looks like a gorgeous cultural loop, in which all the pieces are getting together, from Andy, to Andy.

Among the displayed paintings, most of them kind of abstract, I choose one, in particular that was very meaningful to me. A Chinese grand fest, with the same dignity of the most famous nature morte from the Renaissance. But it speaks Chinese, of course.

The pieces I selected are just a "brush stroke" on the big canvas of the AAP. So please, go in person to verify my assumptions.

(I added a link to each original website for each image. See descriptions)

• MADELYN ROEHRIG - FIGMENTS: ANDY'S TOMBSTONE 

         EDITION II April 2011 - December 2012

screenshot of the NPR website, where you can hear the story of Madelyn project:

http://www.npr.org/2012/08/06/157776348/in-warhols-memory-soup-cans-and-coke-bottles

listen to the 4 minutes interview with the author! 

  

• WADE KRAMM - COLLAPSIBLE CHAIR

image above from the artist's website:          

http://www.wadekramm.net/#!collapsible-chair/cvd0

• PENNY MATEER - You Better Think THINK Think about...

          #9 Protest Series, 2012, Fiber, 56" x 72"

image above from the artist website:

http://pennymateer.com/artwork/2525192_You_Better_Think_THINK_Think_about_9.html

• DIANE WHITE - GRAND FEST

above: screenshot from the website 

http://www.pittsburghmagazine.com/Pittsburgh-Magazine/May-2013/Best-of-Culture-May/

• ATTICUS ADAMS 

above screenshot from the artist website http://www.atticusadams.com/portfolio/waccamaw-neck/ is not about the piece displayed at the AAP, but it is created with a similar technique: aluminum net and gesso.  Original description says:

Dimensions: 62”x38”x29”
Materials: Aluminum mesh, gesso, spray enamel, grommets
Weight: 5lbs
Year: 2012

This sculpture was created from flat sheets of aluminum mesh that were molded by hand with a simple wooden tool. The individual sections were then joined together by hand twisting the fringed edges. The coat of gesso was sealed with spray enamel. This work can be hung from the ceiling or from the wall

Andy's Time Capsules: OUT OF THE BOX @ Andy Warhol Museum

Quoting the motto of a famous storage company: Get . More . When . You . Store !

(quote above from the official Time Capsule website - see link below)

Andy Warhol perfectly knew how to create value through his work. Indeed, this boxes he started filling since 1974 where first meant to be merely storage of Andy's stuff, during the relocations he went through. 

The boxes were filled with many objects, letters, invitations to events, books, but also receipts, tax forms, legal papers, bills. Anything that could fit in the box was ready to be stored.

Lately, Andy thought to sell them. According to the TC21 project website, he was thinking of selling them closed, with just a picture on them, the content to be discovered by the client only after the purchase. 

All those boxes were never sold and remained closed for years. In 2007, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh started a program of cataloguing for each box. It's a six-years founded project that will end soon, considering that almost all the boxes have been opened and archived. 

A skilled team is working on them with care and dedication. Even the most little piece found in the boxes is catalogued according to one of the 22 categories created for this project. There is no "miscellaneous" and it was difficult, in some cases, find the right category for certain stuff. There is also a category called "mother". 

The Museum has recently started opening them in public, finding with the attendees what Andy stored in the picked box. It's the Out of the Box event. The first time capsule public opening was in December 2012. On May, 10th 2013 I was able to attend another live opening, at the theater of the museum. The next ones will be in July 2013 and September 2013.

During the event, the three girls working on the project, opened a box for us. A cam was recording from above. On a screen we could see, projected, what was inside the box, discovering little by little the content. 

The team explained us the way they work, the process of cataloguing and some funny stories about their job. This job, that is for sure interesting and could be hilarious, is also very important for the Andy Warhol foundation. It allows the tracking of Andy's masterpieces, exhibitions, donations etc. Cataloguing each piece is a very delicate task. The girls are constantly in touch with other members of the projects, who help them in understanding the meaning of creation pieces. In some cases, foreign  languages or "missing links" make the job very tough. It takes a lot of general knowledge, pop culture and a little or craziness to understand certain connections.

During the last opening, we found good pieces from Andy. A part from mail and invitations, our box (from 1978) contained:

Original McDonald's paper bags, for take-away meals. Used.

Covers for the High Times zine, to be evaluated by Andy, and then the printed number, with the chosen cover, and a piece on Andy Warhol.

• A cook book titled: Palette to Palate

• Armand Schaubroeck Steals ‎– Ratfucker (record never opened by Andy, but opened live for us)

• A letter sent by "Professor Plum"

• Tax Files

• Postcards from Egypt and Japan

• a low quality cigar, never smoked

• "Bibles Stories" by William Anthony ("I can't wait for the New Testament. This is the first Bible I could understand."—Andy Warhol)

• a card saying: Flowers are Sex Organs

• a telegram regarding a recommendation to meet with Mick Jagger

• a copy of the book "Delirious New York" by Rem Koolhaas, clearly never read (but highly recommended by myself)

The event was very professionally held, interesting and appealing. It's a nice balance of seriousness (the process and cataloguing) and hilarious (the content).

I also recommend you to visit the blog of the project http://www.warhol.org/connect/blogs/tc/ and the official website of the project http://www.warhol.org/TC21/main.html where you'll be able to see the content of the boxes and learn more about this.

And if you'll be here in May or September, don't miss the next opening! Only few boxes to go…

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. 

Andy Warhol Weekend

Gosh. That's the best possible way to start a post about Andy (and you'll discover why by reading all this stuff).

Pittsburgh is his native city, the place where he graduated in 1949 ( at the Carnegia Institute of Technology, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design) and the place he left looking for something more. 

"Almost Pittsburgh" is also the place where he is buried, in a very simple way. It is possible to see his grave here and leave there your telematic hommage.

This long weekend has definitely been the Andy Warhol one, by right. I started on Friday, visiting the Andy Warhol Museum. On Saturday I went to see the musical Pop! at the City Theatre (south side). [here the Facebook Page]. On Sunday I checked out some more information about him and his super-stars (Edie Sedgwick in primis: I also bought a book about her and her dinasty). On Monday, Memorial Day, I ride to Oakland to see Andy's house, located at 3252 Dawson Street. 

Here I just want to share with you some pictures and my impressions about this experience. 

(one of Andy's works as illustrator: Papageno serie).

The museum is opened until 10pm on Friday, perfect solution for end your "casual day". I even paid half ticket, I don't know if it is like this all the Fridays or just this. Then my visit started from the 6th floor going down. I saw the permanent collection, always updated taking from the storage "something new". I visited the museum also last summer and certain things changed (in better). Great selection of the pieces.

the 6th floor is mainly dedicated to the videos, all deserving to spent the correct amount of time to enjoy them. Weird is the word, amazing is the comment, uncanny is the feeling. Sitting on fancy star poufs, you can see Andy's produtions and his team of "Incredibles". 

 The type of camera he used give the videos a very home-made appearance: this augment the sense of really seeing them talking and chatting as they were still alive. 

Very interesting and equally peculiar the videos in the corridor and in the other room, projected on big screens, showing faces and bodies, doing nothing but looking at you. 

As you go down, floor by floor, you encounter Andy's early works as illustrator, but also issues of Interview, other video, thousands of pictures about him young, very young or old. All mixed in a pre-ordered mess, very Andy style, that results to be perfectly readable anyway. You can definitely follow the story, even if the pieces are so numerous and apparently confusing. 

(on the left: dog stuffed with straw)

The lowest floors are dedicated to his paintings and to the "sculptures" he built/made/arranged. 

You cannot miss the balloon room, for children but also for adults.Because Andy knew that there is a children hidden in every adult: male, female or even confused. This is probably part of his secret: building toys for adults, working on (and activating) the most remote memory of our infancy. 

 

When I look at his art, I can always recognize what I'm looking at. But the meaning is different, indeed, and the approach to that is -I think- first of all childish, and only after more "serious". 

This lecture of Andy is due also by enjoying the musical Pop! The story is simple, there isn't a regul plot, but all a collection of memories about Andy's superstars. On the stage I could listen to Candy's, Edie's, Diva's, Valery's, Gerard's and Ondine's point of view about Andy. They are the main role's, actually, coz the story is set as if Andy is just a director of ready-made puppets. The musical emphatizes Andy's passivity, even if this is not exactly true. You cannot become "Andy Warhol" only saying gosh! gosh! gosh! every time one of the superstars is asking you money or a part in a B movie <but with a different letter>. 

(this video refers to the world premiere in 2009, 

with some differences, but same humor and songs)

But don't misunderstood me: the musical is great and probably is the right tribute to the "paper dolls" that -as Edie sings- just wanted to be dressed up by Andy (despite claiming later for the appreciation of their performances in the Factory). It's all a story about the psychologic slavery that the Superstars suffered from Andy, he being unable to stop or overlook on that. but this is the lecture that comes out from watching the musical, I could not consider this a "scientific" Andy's  biography.

it's for sure a very interesting musical, little if compared to the Brodway's superproductions, but definitely complete and entertaining. Nice songs, great effort from every actor (except for Andy, but this is fault of the character, not of the actor). Great work on the similarity of the cast to the Superstars. Great fun hearing Candy's talking and singing as a woman, but played by a terrific Brian Charles Rooney. He did great, considering that he had to play and sing as a woman, but at times also as a woman that mocks and apes at others. Great interpretation, very high quality. Congrats!

The last piece of the story (talking about my Andy's weekend) is the ride toward his house. I arrived there in the morning, with the only intention to see that and take some pictures. The house is now private, I suppose, not abandoned but for sure closed, when I was there. The sun was exactly behind that, so I couldn't take great pictures but for the followings.

And that's all, I suppose. Or, as Andy sings in the last song ("Andy's philosophy"), that's NOTHING.