Pittsburgh Center for the Arts
Through May 3
Various times
The best place to explore the region’s contemporary art scene this weekend is at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts where you can catch not one, but nine new art openings, all under one roof.
On view through May 3 and curated by Adam Welch, the group exhibit features emerging and established artists from the tri-state area who work with a wide variety of media and practices—from performance art to silkscreened prints.
Featured artists, who range in age from 27 to 55, are Scott Andrew, Vlad Basarab, Terry Boyd, Oreen Cohen, Joy Christiansen Erb, Katie Ford, Joseph Lupo, Katie Murken and Hisham Youssef.
Step up to Katie Ford’s site-specific exhibit, Spanning, to experience recordings of environmental sounds and social noise within mixed media sculptures that incorporate reclaimed lumber, mirrors, fabric and transistor radios. View a deconstruction of the 1982 comic book The Invincible Iron Man, complete with a colorful series of 69 silkscreened prints, within Joseph Lupo’s Comic Configurations.
In his large-scale sewing installation, Bowers & Embroideries, Pittsburgh-born fiber artist Terry Boyd uses yarn and a bow and arrow to create delicate and powerful works that explore abstraction, machination and the complexity of thread.
To create her installation, Nearly Captured, artist Oreen Cohen walked the streets of Pittsburgh recording 450 rubbings of architectural details and urban textures using aluminum sheets and wooden tools. Her resulting work, which explores the topography and culture of Pittsburgh, includes a one-night performance by three dancers who will perform a “cat-and-mouse game” on top of and under a large malleable metal curtain made from the artist’s rubbings.
In Scott Andrew’s Phase-Shift (named for a technology used in the sci-fi TV show, Star Trek: The Next Generation) viewers will encounter a multi-media installation that explores identity, masculinity and perception, while Romanian artist Vlad Basarab’s large installation, The Archaeology of Memory, uses time-lapse videos, sculpture and performance to explore history, loss and memory.
Also on view are Markers, by contemporary photographer Joy Christiansen Erb, Fight Well Against the Future by sculptor and collage artist Katie Murken and the wood-based installation, One Room, by Hisham Youssef.
