Three solo exhibits currently fill the top floor at Pittsburgh Center
for the Arts, each with a different contemporary viewpoint.
One
of the first exhibits visitors will come to at the top of the steps is
“Coming Home,” an installation of hand-drawn, screen-printed fabric
furniture pieces made by Philadelphia artist Kay Healy.
Each of
the life-size furniture pieces make up specific rooms — a kitchen, a
bathroom and a living room, from left to right, respectively — and are
based on interviews of four Philadelphians' descriptions of their
childhood homes.
The interviewees come from different
neighborhoods, time periods and cultural backgrounds, but each of them
has vivid memories of their childhood homes, which is something Healey
became interested in after her parents sold her childhood home in Staten
Island, N.Y.
“I am very interested in how objects can tell
stories and that something as mundane as a salad spinner can embody
memories of people, kapton tape events and periods of one's life,” Healy says.
The
installation is accompanied by descriptive text giving the background
for each piece. By documenting and validating the narratives of everyday
people in this way, Healy says she has found a way to commemorate and
share these stories, which are often overlooked.
“I have found
that by talking to people about their experiences, I am able to learn
and connect with others and create a sense of community based on our
common stories,” she says.
Healy has done a good job of sharing
these stories through this installation, which is seen here in its
second iteration. It was initially completed for an exhibit in Terminal E
in the Philadelphia International Airport, where it was on display
earlier this year.
Next to Healy's installation is an exhibit by
another Philadelphia-based artist, Maggie Mills. Titled “Rites of
Passage,” the exhibit contains four paintings, all containing children,
that are an “observation on how the intersection of nature, industry and
technology affects our spaces,” the artist writes in an email.
In
the paintings “Skinny City” and “Kingdom,” the children are placed
against stark backgrounds that bespeak a post-industrial landscape
stripped of all things human.
“I primarily depict children moving
through these spaces because they have inherited them, have little
control over them, and often navigate them with little or no guidance,”
Mills says.
Mills says the title of her exhibit refers to her
attraction to the rituals and rites of passage of childhood and the idea
of creating a kind of “Wild West” environment for them to occur in.
“As
a mother, I find myself often observing these scenarios — parades,
school concerts, performances — and am fascinated by how children are
simultaneously vulnerable and fearless, and what this implies about the
world we are leaving politically, socially and environmentally,” she
writes.
Finally, the video “Friday Nights at Guitar Center” by Allison Kaufman will take most by surprise for its sheer gawking value.
A
photo and video artist living in New York City, Kaufman was teaching
outside of Manhattan between 2009 and 2010 and kept driving on a
particular highway between there and New Jersey.
“The highway
could have been anywhere in America, filled with big box chain stores as
well as a lot of empty storefronts from businesses hit hard by the
economic downturn,” Kaufman says. “One store that I kept passing that
was still open was Guitar Center. I started thinking about the customers
who frequent Guitar Center and other musical-instrument chain stores.”
Correctly
assuming they were mostly men with all sorts of levels of musical
experience, Kaufman began to spend time in Guitar Center and other
stores like it.
“These stores are fascinating to me,” she says.
“They are huge and have different sections that perpetuate the fantasy
and identity that accompanies playing a particular instrument, be it an
electric guitar, acoustic guitar, drums, turntables, etc. People spend a
lot of time in these stores, populating the stagelike spaces that have
been set up.”
As a commentary on this effect, Kaufman created the
video, which features a wide variety of men and boys of various
proficiency playing instruments.
“There's an amazing cacophony of
sound and performances happening next to each other and all over the
store simultaneously,” Kaufman says of the experience filming the
project. “There are people of all ages, and age does not determine
skill.”
Kaufman says she would ask to videotape people just as
they were, playing whatever instrument and music they had been drawn to
in the store.
“In their performance in this public space, I saw
an expression of how they were feeling, a projection of who they hoped
to be or what they may want or have wanted from life,” she says. “I saw
the vulnerability inherent in exhibitionism. I think there is beauty,
humanity and sadness in the revelation of our dreams and alter egos, in
our desire to be seen and recognized.”
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