#mattress factory

[bronzelitfeathers]

[your-worst-boy]

"It's All About ME, Not YOU" by Greer Lankton

Few pieces have moved me as instantly as this installation by Greer Lankton...transness, to me, has always felt like a version of religion. And looking into the windows of this piece, I saw all the feelings I could never quite put into words, put into art.

Transness is holy suffering. It is being forced to reconcile the relationship between the flesh and the soul. It is, through this examination, finding what connects your spirit to the rest of humanity. It is cultivating a deep, transcendent empathy - in learning why we are so different, we simultaneously learn why we are all so connected.

What is it to be a man? What is it to be a woman? What is it to be a person?

What is it to be a human being?

What is it to exist as a pure essence placed into a vessel of flesh?

What is it to feel at conflict with one's vessel?

To be trans is to deconstruct one's physical and spiritual components, and figure out day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, what YOUR truth is.

As played out as the butterfly metaphor is...I cannot think of a better analogy. It is deconstructing one's form, becoming a pool of the prior components, and over time rebuilding onesself to become what was always meant to be.

Many focus on either the caterpillar or the butterfly, but the mind boggling inner processes of the chrysalis are what makes it divine.

I cried looking at the crosses above Greer's head, in this depiction of her lying in bed sick, surrounded by substances and holy imagery. It reminded me of myself and my own issues with addiction, illness, and my strange relationship with spirituality.

It looked to me like she was being called home. What looked like mutilation and viscera to others, looked to me like the light and hope above Greer's head that kept her going. That was her TRUTH. Her holiness. Her Heaven.

[ursine-sister]

🔴⚪️🔴⚪️

[calicojackrabbit]

D²NA - TC24: Visions of the Past (Akwasi Bediako Afrane)

Materials: Home appliances, electronics, electrical cables, plexiglass, VR headsets, model trains

[persistentvisionz]

June 5, 2024

A bee (or caterpillar?) trolley!

Isla Hansen at the Mattress Factory - Pittsburgh, PA

[pittsburghbeautiful]

The Mattress Factory

The Mattress Factory Art Museum: A Pioneer of Contemporary Installation Art The Mattress Factory Art Museum, located in Pittsburgh, is a renowned contemporary art museum that has made significant contributions to the world of site-specific installation art. With its unique and immersive exhibits, the museum has become a must-visit destination for art enthusiasts from around the world. Founded in…

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[internationalpictures]

Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

[sheltiechicago]

Lights and Painted Blocks of Color Intersect in a Perspective-Bending Installation by Luftwerk

A deceptively trippy installation by Chicago-based duo Luftwerk (previously) immerses viewers in a distorted environment of color and sound. Relying entirely on physical properties for its illusions, Open Square connects two spaces that are painted with clean, angled blocks of color in cool and warm tones. Prismatic LED lights flash across the rooms, skewing their boundaries and creating perpetually changing settings that appear to emerge and fade over time.

The abstract installation is part of Factory Installed 2021, a group exhibition at Mattress Factory. One of five projects, Luftwerk’s Open Square transforms the historic building into a kaleidoscopic experience that’s “designed to mesmerize and shed the outside world, holding limitless possibilities for exploration,” a statement says. “Developed throughout the Covid-19 lockdowns of 2020, the exhibition reflects on the habitat that defines our everyday experience.”

Artists Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero are behind Luftwerk