Imagine this


Imagine this -- A block long row of attached brick houses, on a street of similar blocks, in a neighborhood of similar streets. As often happens in a dream, you wander down the street and enter one of the houses. Yes, you can enter: don't knock, don't ring the bell, the door is unlocked.

The scene shifts radically when you enter. The house is gutted. Floorboards dark and worn, plaster walls removed, studs and lathe exposed. But it does not have the dank and musty deserted house smell. It smells like beeswax. And then you notice, from the ceiling, yellow wax is dripping. And the sound - the sound is that of chirpping birds, whirring wings.

You are free to move around, explore.

You ascend the rickety stairs. More wax, stalagtites and stalagmites. Through the ceiling, where several boards are missing, you glimpse some of the birds, gathered under the attic eaves.

More stairs. There they are, the birds, fluttering around a window. But don't be concerned for them: there is food: birdseed and water left close to the outside wall., they are being cared for.

And in the center of the attic room, a case of wax doll's heads, wax faces. Some have begun to melt, the wax dripping down and through the floor.

What does it mean? As you are free to explore, you are free to make your own interpretation.




Imagine this



Stocking footed , you enter a room with a white and red polka dotted floor and mirrored walls and ceiling. Several manikins, painted white with red polka dots are placed about the room. Reflected again and again, a geometric reflection, they spin off into the horizon on every side.

The design and dynamics of this room changes as you move about it. Look up! There you are, all of you, reflected in that ceiling.


You have been thrust into the center of a kaleidoscope. With friends, you can form a kaleidoscopic pattern, chaining in and around the manikins. What else can you do? Mimic the manikins? Glide and dance between them?

Strangers enter. What will they do? You freeze into manikin positions. They don't get it.





Imagine this




A large room, painted white with subdued lighting, empty except for a painting which hangs at the far end of the room. It is a large, minimalist painting, in electric blue; shimmering, hanging, seemingly disassociated from the wall.

Stand back. What makes the painting so vibrant? Is it, perhaps, backlit?

Approach. As you near it, the painting transforms into a window. A window into a shallow second room, painted blue, and lit with ultra violet light.

Now step back. The window becomes the suspended painting.

Advance, recede. The illusion is complete.









Imagine this




A long, spare room, empty except for 4 chairs and several prints on the walls. The chairs are grouped, not for cnversation, nor for contemplation. Is there meaning in the arrangement?


When you return another day, the chairs are arranged differently and so are the prints. Another day, another arrangement. Dare you impose your own arrangement?


Then you learn that these arrangements are determined by a computer random number generator. The curators come each morning and re-arrange the room according to that day's number.

It has nothing to do with artistic sense or sensibility. Any Feng Shui is purely accidental . There is no meaning except no meaning.








Imagine this



We descend into the basement where, in an out-of the way hallway, there are shelves of boxes. Uniform, these are standard office supply fare. Each box is labeled with the name and dates of an artist. Some of these artists are very famous, others obscure. All had exhibited in the Carnegie International over the years.


Visitors have turned this display into an interactive shrine: they leave mementos in the boxes, messages to artists that have touched their lives.



Tippi finds the box of the artist father of a classmate, and leaves in it a drawing his son had made of her during their art school days together.







This is installation art. Art you can really get into! Art that engages all the senses, teases the imagination. Total immersion, 360¡ smellie, feelie, thinkie. Art that is site specific, temporary, existing briefly in time and space and then forever in memory.

The Mattress Factory is Pittsburgh's only museum devoted to site specific, installation art. Located on Pittsburgh's northside, the Mattress Factory is in a building that was once, indeed, a mattress factory. The factory building houses their current shows, and down the street on Samsonia Way is a second building, devoted to the permanent collection.

The web site of the Mattress Factory will give the potential visitor directions and a good map (there is a parking lot behind the building), hours and current shows.