July 25, 2011 6:01 AM
By Susan Constanse

You’ve probably already been to Heinz Hall to hear the symphony, or caught a show at the Benedum Center, but there are several other venues throughout the Cultural District that add vibrancy to the area, and many showcase must-see visual art. Here, we spotlight the best art events and exhibits of the season, so you can get your culture fix this summer.

Drawn In A Day

Through September 4
SPACE Gallery
812 Liberty Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA
(412) 325-7723
Hours: Wed -Thur 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.; Fri – Sat 11 a.m. -8 p.m.; Sun 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Free
Business Directory Listing
Website: www.spacepittsburgh.org

The best contender for hottest show of the summer in the Cultural District is Drawn in a Day. Robert Raczka asked a dozen artists to produce drawings directly on the walls of SPACE Gallery, during a one-day drawing marathon. SPACE Gallery is a huge, well, space, with gargantuan walls. The effort that these artists expended is herculean. The artists worked on the walls during the entire day and well into the opening reception on July 15. With few exceptions, the artists are from Pittsburgh, and have been producing work in the region for many years. The dozen or so artists exhibiting in Drawn in a Day include David Pohl, Eric Stern and Cara Erskine.

Selected Works from Charles “Teenie” Harris

Rhapsody in Black and White & Looking Forward: Images of Children
The August Wilson Center for African American Culture
980 Liberty Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA
(412) 258-2700
Hours: Tue – Sat 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Business Directory Listing
Website: www.augustwilsoncenter.org/

If you have an interest in local history, then The August Wilson Center for African American Culture is a must for any tour of the Cultural District. Along with its rotating exhibits, the August Wilson Center has an ongoing exhibit of photographs by Pittsburgh icon, Teenie Harris. A prolific photographer, Mr. Harris captured the everyday lives of African Americans in almost every neighborhood in Pittsburgh. His career spanned the decades from 1930-1970 and he was one of the principal photographers for the Pittsburgh Courier.

Shaw Galleries

805 Liberty Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA
(412) 281-4884
Hours: Tue – Sat 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Free
Business Directory Listing
Website: www.shawgalleries.com

If the August Wilson Center hasn’t satisfied your thirst for the historical, stop in and say hello to Kurt Shaw at Shaw Galleries. You never know what you are going to find in the bins and flatfiles of rare prints and maps, dating from the 18th century to the present day. Carefully archived, the collections span prints from such master artists as Miro, Degas and Renoir, sharing room with historical maps of Pittsburgh neighborhoods.

Brian Sesack – Looking for Clues: Selected images 2003 – 2010

Through September
Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council
810 Penn Avenue, Suite 200
Pittsburgh, PA
(412) 391-2060
Hours: Mon – Fri 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Free
Website: www.pittsburghartscouncil.org

There are always a few surprises along the way in the Cultural District, with artists displaying work in unusual places. Such is the case with Brian Sesack’s photographs, on display in the offices of the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council as part of their Art on the Walls program. Mr. Sesack presents work from several series in this retrospective, chronicling his efforts to hone his voice. The exhibit is extensive, displayed throughout the offices and in meeting rooms and the staff is always available to let you in so that you can tour the works. While you’re there, you can pick up a map of public art located in the downtown area.

Installations by Ty Marshal (through Sept. 4), Michael Benedetti (through Aug. 6), and Kyle Hossli (Aug. 7 – Sept. 1)

Future Tenant
Free
819 Penn Avenue
Pittsburgh PA
Hours: Wed – Sun 12 p.m. – 4 p.m.
Website: http://futuretenant.org

Almost directly across Penn Avenue from the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council is Future Tenant. The storefront space is a joint project of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, CMU’s College of Fine Arts, and the Master of Arts Management program at CMU. During the summer months, Future Tenant will have rotating window installations by local Pittsburgh artist Michael Benedetti and Kyle Hossli and will have a bathroom installation by Ty Marshall. You can walk past the window installations any time, but the bathroom installation is, of course, only open for viewing during regular gallery hours.

You can definitely play the cultural tourist in downtown with all of these great exhibits. Every quarter, the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust coordinates a Gallery Crawl with all of the downtown galleries and venues. Along with the visual fare, many of the galleries host DJ’s and other performers. The upcoming Gallery Crawl is scheduled for September 30 and a full schedule of the event will be available on the Cultural Trust website.

Susan Constanse is a painter, living and working in Pittsburgh. Examples of her work can be viewed on her website.

It’s tough being a jet-setting artist these days. What, with international art fairs to attend, gallery hobnobbing to do and museum shows to participate in, who has the time to make it to the opening reception of his or her own gallery show?

So it is that R.L. Tillman, a professor in the printmaking department at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, printed up a couple hundred “While You Were Out” forms and placed them on the walls in his exhibit of the same title at Future Tenant, Downtown.

Visitors are invited to write and inform the artist of what they have been up to, and more importantly, what Tillman has been missing while out of town, having not been in Pittsburgh since setting up his exhibit last month.

It’s not that he thinks Pittsburgh isn’t worthy of his presence. After all, Tillman will be at the gallery Friday evening for the closing reception of his exhibit, part of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s summer Gallery Crawl from 5:30 to 9 p.m. And earlier last month, he spent a week at Artist Image Resource, an artist-run printmaking facility on the North Side, printing those “While You Were Out” forms as well as several components that are part of two other installation/interactive-type pieces visitors will see in his show.

Tillman is in demand. He has exhibited his work throughout the U.S. and abroad, including as an invited participant at the 12th Print Triennial in Tallinn, Estonia, and the 3rd IMPACT Print Conference in Capetown, South Africa.

As for the “While You Were Out” forms, Tillman responded via e-mail: “I wanted to develop a project that could evolve in my absence. I look forward to seeing what has happened.”

As you might have figured out by now, Tillman isn’t your average printmaker. His work is more about process. Not only the process of making his prints, but the process of presenting the work in such a way that he gets feedback from his audience.

“I have been making prints since college,” he says, “and I started exploring the multi-dimensional, interactive aspects of the print in the early 2000s.”

Tillman was in graduate school at the University of Iowa at the time, making traditional images, using traditional printmaking techniques. “I gradually realized that I was less interested in making pictures, and more interested in provoking a response,” he says. “I grew to believe that an immersive, interactive experience provides a more immediate connection between artist and audience.”

That goes a long way in explaining his largest installation piece in the show, “Aphorisms,” which, looking much like Andy Warhol’s famous Brillo Boxes from the 1960s, are cardboard boxes with printed slogans, stacked in the gallery as if in a warehouse. But instead of trademarked advertising adorning the boxes, Tillman has chosen to print well-designed versions of common aphorisms one might tell oneself, such as “Lose some weight,” “Call your mother” or “Bring an umbrella.”

Tillman says he can’t deny the Warhol connection, but the piece really is about something else entirely. “The specific phrases printed on the boxes are not connected to Warhol or Pittsburgh,” he says. “The phrases are supposed to be commonplace and generally empty advice.”

The design of the boxes also is more universal, not tied to a specific place or art movement. “In fact,” he says, “from a design standpoint, the boxes are supposed to feel rather generic. Generic graphic design language is something I often explore in my art.”

That’s certainly true of the piece “Ditto,” which features a high-quality framed print propped up in one corner, beneath which are several haphazardly laid, poor-quality prints of the same image surrounded by the phrase “we should be giving these people duplication machines.”

It’s based on a phrase and an image Tillman has worked with for some time now.

“In response to the election uprisings and protests in Iran a couple of years ago, Bill Bennett went on CNN and said (paraphrased) ‘We should be giving these people duplication machines,’ ” Tillman says. “The phrase struck me as simultaneously ethically valid, but also absurdly out of touch. Especially because ‘duplication machine’ is such an antiquated term. ‘Duplication machine’ is a term for a mimeograph, or other outdated copying technologies. So, the implication of supporting a democratic uprising with ‘duplication machines’ misunderstands the nature of revolution and the nature of communication in the 21st century. At the same time, the phrase is ethically valid — we should be giving these people duplication machines! It’s just an interesting contrast.”

As U.S. efforts to promote democratic change have intersected with popular movements in the Middle East and Northern Africa, Tillman says he keeps coming back to this phrase. The image in the print is an old mimeograph machine, and the “crummy-looking” reproductions on the floor are available for gallery visitors to take.

“In my mind, giving away poor simulations of an ‘original’ image somehow reflects the imperfect notion of promoting American-style democracy elsewhere in the world,” he says. “At the same time, each of the crummy reproductions is still an original, hand-pulled silkscreen print, and each one is slightly different. It’s not mechanically reproduced, so each print has an authenticity of its own. To me this somehow reflects the inherent virtue of the notion of promoting democracy.”

In this way, Tillman says he sees the multiple as a powerful tool to physically engage with an audience. “Over time, this has become the most important reason that I use printmaking techniques,” he says. “It’s really been the core of my projects for several years, and I can’t imagine abandoning it. For me, interactivity and multiplicity are the most interesting critical aspects of printmaking. So I’m sure that these concepts will continue to form the core of my relationship with the printed multiple, at least for the foreseeable future.”

Read more: R.L. Tillman’s exhibit evolves in artist’s absence - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/ae/s_746579.html#ixzz1SYk08o00

“While You Were Out”

R.L. Tillman

Future Tenant Art Space

Now through July 15

819 Penn Avenue

412-325-7037

“Call your mother.”

“Lose some weight.”

These one-phrase reminders stick out, partially because almost everyone writes them frequently. One artist also made them a medium for his exhibit on everyday life: its ups, downs and banalities.

R.L. Tillman, a printmaker from Baltimore and founder of the blog Printeresting.org, will show his new exhibition, “While You Were Out,” now through July 15 at Future Tenant Art Space in Downtown.

Consisting of three separate pieces, the exhibition deviates from standard printmaking. Instead of limiting himself to displaying standard one-dimensional prints, Tillman chose to make his exhibit more interactive, focusing around pieces that viewers can take home or write on.

“My work explores the vapidity of contemporary graphic language, and ‘While You Were Out’ also addresses the emptiness of the way we use language in everyday life. The three pieces in the show each use text, image and immersion to involve the viewer in largely hollow exchanges,” Tillman said.

The artist used boxes, posters, leaflets and fliers to create his pieces. One piece, titled “Aphorisms,” consists of several boxes all printed with messages we might leave to ourselves frequently, such as “Call your mother” or “Lose some weight.” The second piece, “Ditto,” features one framed print, and then hundreds of copies fanned out across the floor for viewers to take with them.

The third piece, located at the front of the gallery, is the exhibition’s namesake — “While You Were Out.” For the piece, Tillman printed up hundreds of copies of a standard “While you were out” form. Visitors of the exhibit can write messages on them and then pin them individually to one of the boards on the opposite wall.

“People can leave their notes, either for [Tillman] or for friends or for whomever they decide to leave a note for,” Katy Peace, co-executive director at Future Tenant, said. “So it’s an exhibition that is constantly changing as it progresses over the course of the month.”

To a certain degree, “While You Were Out” reflects a general trend in the art world. Because of the utilitarian nature of crafts, the art world often did not hold it on the same level as fine arts. But in the past few years, printmaking, traditionally thought of as a “lower,” form of art, has become increasingly popular.

“It’s counter-intuitive. In an increasingly digital culture, you might expect interest in printed art to contract. Instead, it’s growing,” Tillman said.

Printmaking is sometimes regarded as a style of art for the masses. Prints can be copied and duplicated any number of times with copies remaining nearly identical to the original. The same is true in a bigger way in the case of “While You Were Out,” except now the viewers make the reprints. The original image, that of the “While you were out” note fashioned by Tillman, remains the same, but each viewer gets to add her personal input.

“While You Were Out” demonstrates the potential for creativity and interaction, both within the art community and between the artist and spectator. Now a collaboration between the artist and the exhibit’s viewers, the project began as a collaboration between Tillman and students at Artists Image Resource, a local organization that helps artists and students throughout the creative process by bringing them together in what AIR director Robert Beckman refers to as a “dynamic working environment.” Tillman, formerly the artist in residence for Kent State University, came to Pittsburgh through his work with AIR.

“The [Artists Image Resource] studio serves as a broad-based print and imaging resource whose mission is to integrate the creation of fine art printwork with innovative educational programs that explore the creative process,” Beckman said.

Pittsburghers are used to slight oddities — the small log cabin on the Cathedral lawn or the garishly-painted dinosaur statues all over the city. But when there’s an 8-foot-tall headless chicken and a vivisected primate running amok in the Cultural District, it’s time to start asking some questions.

The answer to those questions in the case of last Friday’s scene Downtown would have been: It’s art, or the Spontaneous Art performance troupe, to be specific. The improvisational artists brought their special brand of interactive performance art to Future Tenant Art Space and its surrounding sidewalks and streets for an evening. With the use of eye-catching costumes and some creative input from passers-by, the troupe created impromptu skits, attracting a crowd of spectators on Penn Avenue.

One skit involved a performer in a chicken suit — complete with detachable head — first fleeing and then chasing a contrite butcher, who shrieked apologies to the decapitated fowl. After the chicken sketch had run its course, so to speak, the performers retreated into the gallery for a costume change, returning as a gorilla and its controller. The primate had its skull peeled open to reveal its brain and a signal transceiver, and those who passed by were encouraged to try giving the gorilla commands.

Gregory Rubinstein unwittingly parked his car right in the heart of the shenanigans on his way to pick up his mother from the Megabus station. “I was just passing by,” he said as the gorilla-suited performance artist was break dancing at his feet. He said that he was a bit taken aback at first, but soon warmed up to the absurdity. “I thought it was a good idea,” Rubinstein said.

Spontaneous Art recently gave monthly performances at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago — as well as occasional impromptu skits in other public spaces. Troupe members Natalie Berry and Trevor Stone, the two performers featured in Friday’s skit, contacted Future Tenant about arranging a Pittsburgh performance and used the gallery as a base of operations. Their third member, Chris Sandom, was not able to make the performance.

Katy Peace, co-director of Future Tenant, said that as a multidimensional art space, the gallery was excited to be involved with the Spontaneous Art performance. Peace said the troupe’s impromptu performances “get people’s attention and try to foster community involvement.”

Co-director of Future Tenant Erin Gough said that people on the street were very involved. Many pedestrians stopped and lingeredaround the performers, while a few snapped pictures of the performers’ antics.

Spontaneous Art from Pitt News Multimedia on Vimeo.

Had an amazing night at the Future Tenant event Sugar Factory. The art auction was definitely the highlight of my night. I won a piece from Ben Kinsley and Jessica Langley both brilliant artists! More pictures here and a short video here.

Think Outside the Gallery: In case you missed the opening (we heard there was live wrestling) of Fresh Baked Goods at Bakery Square on March 26, you’ve got two more great chances to see the engaging exhibition created by students inCarnegie Mellon University’s Master of Fine Arts program.

Presented by Future Tenant, CMU’s School of Art and Bakery Square/Walnut Capital, the large-scale showcase of new site-specific work has transformed sprawling vacant spaces within the East Liberty-based mixed-use development. Formerly home to a Nabisco Factory, the recently unveiled complex now houses Google, UPMC, Anthropologie, Learning Express, Coffee Tree Roasters, a hotel, and more.

Situated within the built environment of Bakery Square’s massive interiors, Fresh Baked Goodsexplores relationships between the artistic process and this unique exhibition space.

Exhibition curator Adam Welch, who works at Pittsburgh Filmmakers/Center for the Arts, says the show reflects the nature of “baked goods” in that the work was “created in a relatively short period of time through a state of flux, reaction, combustion or synthesis; and existing for a short period of time, with temporal elements that also create something in their own moment of being.”

Featured artists include Nina Sarnelle, Agnes Bolt, Oscar Peters, Jonathan Armistead, Sung Rok Choi, Jesse England, Riley Harmon, Erin Womack, Felipe Castelblanco, Steve Gurysh, Craig Fahner, Scott Andrew, Dan Wilcox, and Luke Loeffler.

Don’t miss a performance night on April 1, held in conjunction with the Unblurred Gallery Crawl along Penn Ave. Mark your calendar now for the show’s special Sugar Factory closing reception. An annual fundraiser for Future Tenant, the festive bash will feature DJs, VJs, performances, and an art auction.

Gallery hours through April 8 are: Weds.-Friday 5-8p.m. and Sat. 1-4 p.m.

By: Jeffrey Ihaza / Staff Writer

Cement buckets, trash lids and a fire extinguisher are just some of the stage props for the plays featured in the “Trespass,” series at Future Tenant’s art space.

Every year three performance artists are given the opportunity to take a week in the space to put on a production. This year’s production features an eclectic group of plays with topics ranging from everyday trash to conflict in Yugoslavia. The gallery has put on the “Trespass” series for three years.

Erin Gough, facilities manager for Future Tenant, said the shows for the “Trespass” series are decided through an application and audition process. She said that this year there were nearly 30 applicants, the most applications Future Tenant has ever received. The applications came from local theater companies as well as individuals hoping to be featured. Gough said that originality as well as performance skill were what ultimately decided the three chosen plays.

The pieces in this years series are: In the Basement Theatre Company’s “Within Distance,” No Name Players’ “The Archipelago” and Poof’s “Stuff.”

“Within Distance” debuted this past weekend. In the Basement Theatre Company consists of Carnegie Mellon students Alex Weston, Adrian Enscoe, Jessie Shelton, Katya Stepanov, Jesse Carey-Beaver, Asia Gagnon and Sarah Gillam.

Their play is a retelling of creation stories from across cultural boundaries. The characters, XX and XY, representing woman and man respectively., encounter several elements of life that act as dividers.

“The characters are named XX and XY so as to remove any religious connotation. We wanted to personify the forces that have separated us as people,” Weston said.

The play features a set constructed almost completely out of household items: buckets, trash lids and a fire extinguisher make up the drum set on stage.

“We basically went to the hardware store and banged on things until we found what sounded good,” Weston said.

Enscoe, one of the actors, said the group chose to go with a makeshift set to show beauty in simplicity.

“We wanted to say, ‘This is us’ — to bring about a sort of childlike imagination in our work,” Enscoe said, explaining that the group wanted to make it seem as though the set might have been created by children.

The next show in the series, which will be presented today through Friday at 8 p.m., is “The Archipelago: A Balkan Passage.”

The show is based on the nonfiction book by Pitt alumnus and author Robert Isenberg. Isenberg performs in the one-man play, telling the story of his year-long trip through the former Yugoslavia to visit an old high school friend. It relates stories from Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia and Bosnia.

The piece is a recounting of stories featured in Isenberg’s book of the same title. His one-man show is presented by Pittsburgh’s performance group The No Name Players in conjunction with the publishers of the book, Autumn House Press.

Isenberg said that there are plenty of similarities between his one-man approach and that of Michael Phillip Edwards’ in the award-winning “runt,” a show about a man’s relationship with his father, which was recently featured at Pittsburgh’s Cultural Trust. Isenberg said that Edwards’ introspective look into his childhood and himself is a good example of what he wanted to accomplish in his piece.

Isenberg said his work is inspired by the playwright Spalding Gray, whose one-man monologues garnered him fame.

“A lot is still happening [in Yugoslavia], the media doesn’t really cover that region as much anymore,” Isenberg said.

The final work in the series is Poof’s “Stuff,” to be shown March 4-5 at 9 p.m.

A series of short documentary films by Annie Leonard on the website storyofstuff.com inspired the Pittsburgh performance artist group Poof’s production. In the shorts, Leonard tracked how much trash and waste is created in everyday life.

“Stuff” features a set comprised entirely of ostensible junk similar to that of “Within Distance.” Director Riva Strauss, a Point Park student, said she wanted to depict the amount of waste that is transferred in the world, but at the same time not spew facts at the audience.

“When people hear facts, they tend to not incorporate them in their lives; Art has that power to actually impact,” Strauss said.

“Stuff” also hopes to pull the audience in by abandoning conventional seating in favor of an art gallery setting with trash strewn about the room and interactive components. Viewers, for example, will participate in a sing-along.

Ashley Sowinski

On September 30^th local designers teamed up with local galleries to put on a mouthwatering fashion show. Hosted by Future Tenant the show was inspired by the themes of Jill Larson’s group-curated exhibition EAT ME, and served as a tribute to Pittsburgh’s first fashion week.

The garments sent down the runway were made up of a wide variety of food items including cornhusks, marshmallows, and fruit roll ups.

The fashions were modeled by some of the designers, friends, and even Tom Sokolowski, the director of The Andy Warhol Museum. Brett James Salon provided the hair and makeup and Kari Kramer provided the dress forms that held the clothing until the closing of the EAT ME exhibition on October 9. Proceeds from the event benefit the development of future artistic programming.

Anna Weldon/Staff Writer

“Too Big to Fail”

Nov. 4-6 and 11-13; 8 p.m.

819 Penn Ave.

Tickets $10 Online; $12 at the door

The Future Ten festival has a surprise for its audience each season, but one year, the actors were surprised when a woman went into labor outside the venue.

This year, with the hope that its own surprises won’t be overshadowed again, Future Tenant will host its annual Future Ten play festival titled “Too Big to Fail.”

Brad Stephenson, the festival’s founder and co-producer, founded Future Ten when he worked for Future Tenant.

“I’ve always liked 10-minute plays, and I like the short format,” he said. “You never know what’s coming next.”

Fred Betzner, co-producer of Future Ten, also finds the short plays inviting.

“It’s a challenge,” Betzner said. “It’s difficult to find a complete character arc in 10 minutes.”

The eight selected playwrights were originally among 175 applicants, and this year Future Tenant had the most scripts ever produced for the festival. A panel of seven judges went through the original plays and “wittled them down to eight,” Stephenson said. The panel was made up of Andrew Paul, producing artistic director for Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre; Don DiGiulio, founding artistic director of No Name Players; Todd Betker and Adam Kukic of Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company and Laura Zorch and Orvokki Halme, directors of Future Tenant.

“Future Ten is a curated festival, not a competition,” Stephenson said. “They chose what is best for the audience.”

Both local and out-of-state playwrights submitted their work to the festival.

The festival is more of a communal entity that helps the playwrights, directors and actors to meet others within their craft, Stephenson said.

Though the festival will give the playwrights some publicity, it is not the intention of the event.

“We’re not going to make or break a playwright,” Stephenson said, laughing.

Each playwright has done plays in the past, and some have had their work in a Future Ten festival before. Playwrights such as F. J. Hartland, Arthur M. Jolly, Joseph Lyons, Carol Mullen and Gayle Pazerski have previously been part of the show.

Other playwrights include Trace Crawford, Tammy Ryan and Chris White, who all have had their plays performed across the country.

The plays in the festival are all different subgenres of comedy.

“There are very different comedies,” Betzner said. “Slapstick, satirical and some that are just silly.”

Joseph Lyons, a playwright in his sixth season with Future Ten, wrote a play titled “There Will Be Jetpacks.” The play, like the title implies, includes jetpacks among a bevy of other entertaining components, and embodies what Betzner describes as a “just silly” brand of humor.

“His plays are always funny and memorable,” Stephenson said.

The title of the whole event is “Too Big to Fail,” but the festival’s content does not reflect the title, Stephenson said. Betzner explained the introduction will incorporate the title’s theme, and that the two are “writing a little bit” for the festival.

Future Ten is in its seventh season. Each festival holds a surprise for the audience, and in past years, there were games such as “Slap the Hooker,” Stephenson said.

Much like an adult form of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, participants had to slap the hookers, which were both male and female.

“The game was not gender-specific,” he joked.

This year, another “giant surprise” awaits the audience. The two were hesitant in disclosing any information, but did say it was unrelated to the actual festival.

One important change in the festival is the formatting of the performances. In the past, the Future Ten festival showed 10 different plays, which were split in half between the two weekends. This arrangement had audience members feeling left out from the other weekend’s plays.

This year, there are eight 10-minute plays performed each night on both weekends, with Betzner’s and Stephenson’s short introduction. There will not be any change between the two weekends so the audience will have the full experience at both shows.

The new setup will hopefully spark attention, Stephenson said, because now, the audience does not need to invest in two separate weekends.

Both Betzner and Stephenson have high hopes for the upcoming shows.

“Our main goal is to make something that is entertaining,” Betzner said.

This video is courtesy of Natalie Bell from the University of Pittsburgh’s Pitt News. Natalie and her photographer Luc Felak provided great coverage of the event.

Eat Me Fashion Show

The phrase “eat me” takes on a whole new connotation when you’re wearing a marshmallow minidress or a pair of kale pants.

Tomorrow night, Future Tenant will serve up flavorful fashion made out of food at its EAT ME Fashion Show, featuring five individual designers and four organizations who each created their own edible garment.

“This is the first time I’ve made a fashion design with food and it’s sticky. It’s really sticky,” said Jill Larson, independent curator and designer of the marshmallow dress.

As a visual artist, Larson has been incorporating edibles into her work for about a decade. She was the curator for the current exhibit at Future Tenant: EAT ME, which featured art pieces made of food. So when Orvokki Halme, co-executive director of Future Tenant, cooked up the idea to have a fashion show during Pittsburgh’s Fashion Week, she got in touch with Larson and they decided food was the perfect medium.

“We thought it would be fun to … sort of piggy back on Pittsburgh Fashion Week, kind of do a more art version of the runway show,” Halme said.

Halme will participate on behalf of Future Tenant. She and Co-executive Director Laura Zorch will craft a vest from cornhusks and pants made out of kale, a form of cabbage, for the show. They’ve been planning since the summer, but they haven’t been able to assemble everything early due to the perishable nature of their materials.

Halme explains that most of the designers have waited until the last minute to avoid losing their garments to the perils of rotting, mold and vermin. But, this means that the trial-and-error process of things like kale pants can be extremely difficult.

“Sometimes when I get frustrated, I find myself eating my design,” Larson said.

Food is a difficult material and often difficult to use on its own. Participants can opt to use fabric — for example, Halme and Zorch glued the kale to a pair of long underwear — but the fabric can’t be visible. Larson’s frustrations might be all the greater considering there will be nothing between her model, Kate Little, and the marshmallows.

“So having never worked with marshmallows before other than roasting them over a fire, I didn’t anticipate that all the goo inside them wants to come out … My model, Kate, is going to be sticky,” Larson said.

But, Little, who will also model the dress for Quantum Theater, isn’t concerned about stickiness. She’s more worried about the obvious difficulty of wearing something made from food.

“I think it would probably have to be handled more delicately as not to harm the article of clothing. I’m afraid food might not be as resilient as other materials. That’s my biggest concern. I don’t know if it’s possible to rip a dress of marshmallows, but I think it must be possible,” she said.

Once the show is done, models are allowed to walk around in their delectable dresses. Little muses that she might have friends trying to steal bites of her ensemble and even she admits she might be tempted to nibble.

“I have a sweet tooth. Unless there’s a whole lot of toxic glue on my dress, I’ll be tempted to eat it,” she said, adding that she wouldn’t munch without permission because she’d hate to “compromise the art.”

The night of the actual show, the designers will be in a flurry backstage to put their models in the delicate fashions. Brett James Salon will do the models’ makeup and hair. Many designers will share models and Halme said only one designer thus far had requested food be used in his or her hairstyle.

After the show, cocktails and delectable edibles will be served. But don’t expect any of this to be normal fare. Megan Gillis will provide cupcakes shaped like women’s breasts and the other munchies will have similar themes to them.

“The food that will be served will be…provocative as well,” Halme said.

From people wearing food to food shaped like people, the EAT ME fashion show caters to foodies and fashionistas alike.

By Kurt Shaw, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, September 26, 2010

After seven years of running Fe Gallery, a nonprofit contemporary art exhibit space in Lawrenceville, Jill Larson is stepping down from her position as director and head curator.

“I have done what I can at Fe, in its given location,” Larson says. “It is now time to let others mold the little art space with a big mission.”

Larson, who moved to Pittsburgh from Atlanta in August 2002, opened Fe a year later. “My original intent for Fe was for it to only be there for three months,” says the fine art photographer and independent curator who lives in Squirrel Hill.

“I wanted to curate an exhibition called ‘Detour,’ ” says Larson, describing the exhibit as a response to the turn her life took when she moved north for her then-husband’s job.

“My goal was to have the show exhibited in Pittsburgh and Atlanta, with artists from the two cities,” Larson says. “I wanted to give Atlanta a glimpse of the vibrant art scene that was happening in Pittsburgh and introduce Pittsburgh to some amazing Atlanta artists.

“Unfortunately, I could not find a gallery that was interested in showing artists outside of the region. So, I found an empty space in Lawrenceville. I took the space for one show and three months. Seven years later and 39 exhibitions, Fe is still standing.”

Fe stands for iron; it’s the symbol for iron in the periodic table.

“I wanted it to be the symbol of steel, but in researching the chart, found out that steel was very complicated and varied. Iron was simple,” Larson says. “Plus, it fit with Pittsburgh as the iron city. I wanted a name that would represent Pittsburgh and register in the minds of people living outside of Pittsburgh. I’m always tickled when people ask, ‘Does Fe stand for iron?’

“Our logo is always in the box, yet we strive to show work outside of the box,” she says.

Over the years, Larson has let artists push the limits of the 1,000-square-foot space, even going so far as to build installation pieces in the basement and in the walled-in courtyard in back. For example, Joshua Space cut three holes in the floor in January 2009 for his solo installation “Satellites.” In March 2006, Adam Schreckhise installed a 14-foot-by-18-foot suspended floor in the shape of a giant jigsaw puzzle for the exhibit “Fear … Real or Imagined,” and in November 2005, Joe Peragine installed a near life-size photo of an army tank for the group show “Toy.”

For the current exhibit, “Leaving My Mark,” 10 artists were encouraged to draw, paint and otherwise do whatever they wished on the walls.

“The premise for this show is very specific — like most titles for the shows that I curate. It comes directly from my personal life,” Larson says. ” ‘Leaving My Mark’ is the end of a chapter, as me acting as Fe’s curator.”

Larson says the artwork that was created directly on the walls will be left behind in a way, although it will be covered with paint at the closing party on Oct. 8. Visitors will be invited and encouraged to use white gallery paint to cover the artwork. “So, they should come dressed in their painter’s clothes,” Larson says.

“The evening will be symbolic of the time and energy that I have spent trying to bring Fe and Pittsburgh artists into the national spot light,” she says.

To date, Fe has exhibited more than 350 different regional artists’ works. Sales are encouraged and the majority of the profits go to the artists, with the gallery only taking 25 percent commission to cover operating costs.

Of course, given the cutting-edge nature of much of the work on display, sales are few and far between. “We survive on individual donations and grants and personal drive,” Larson says.

In 2008, the gallery received its largest grant to date, from the Sprout Foundation. As a result, along with funding from the Heinz Endowments and the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, Fe Gallery was able to produced its largest project yet — a 288-page visual-art archive of 250 artists from the Pittsburgh region — in conjunction with Pittsburgh’s 250th anniversary. The gallery sent out 900 catalogs to galleries and museums around the country in an effort to promote Pittsburgh and its artists.

“The proceeds from the sale of this catalogue have allowed Fe to remain open for the past two years,” Larson says. “We write grants to further develop our programming, including an international-artist residency.”

Larson and the gallery’s board introduced an International Artist Residency Program a year ago, when they brought in Anne Wodtke from Munich to work and exhibit in the space. Since then, they have sponsored Pittsburgh artist Ian Ingram’s residency in Munich, where he was provided a studio in a newly converted art complex during the month of July.

Larson credits the gallery’s initial six-member board for implementing this program and other self-sustaining initiatives.

“The board is actively involved with programming, grant writing and the daily operation of the gallery,” Larson says. “Wendy Osher, our former educational chair, initiated several programs including our young writers workshop. Joshua Tonies, another former board member who resigned upon moving to California for graduate school, initiated a screening and performance program that drew hundreds of new people to the gallery.”

Both programs still exist. And Larson says the current board members — Jasdeep Khaira, Jared Boyer, Julia Legler and Nicole Czapinski — are working diligently behind the scenes to keep Fe’s doors open.

“The board is strong, our financial situation is strong, our local support is strong, our national reputation is strong,” Larson says. “I was in New York City talking to the curator of a nonprofit space, and I mentioned Fe. He spun around and grabbed our red shiny catalogue off his shelf and said, ‘I know you.’ ”

Larson says although she is stepping down as director, she looks at it more as “stepping aside” to let others “leave their mark.” Already, Larson and her board have chosen five guest curators, some nationally recognized, for shows planned in 2011, and plan to pick two more.

“Fe will be announcing an open call for curators shortly,” Larson says. “To introduce the national curators to Pittsburgh artists, we are inviting the curators to draw their selection of Pittsburgh artists from the Pittsburgh Artist Registry (www.pittsburghartistregistry.org). By asking the curators to view the registry, it will give Pittsburgh artists an opportunity to have national curators view their artwork,” she says.

Aside from pursuing her own art (a solo show of her work is slated to open in January at 709 Penn Gallery, Downtown), Larson plans to curate shows at other galleries, and she’s already off to a good start. She recently organized the current edible-art exhibit, “EAT ME,” at Future Tenant, Downtown, and is busy organizing a related fashion show, which will include spectacular food-fabricated designs at 10 p.m. Sept. 30 (Details: futuretenant.org).

“I am going to still be very much involved with Fe, after all it’s my baby. So, the timing is right. It’s what I refer to as the seven year itch,” Larson says.

In touch: Prajna Parasher’s “The Braille of Naming.”

Kate Hansen

We live in a connected age. From cable television to the Internet, from cell phones to Twitter, communication technology preoccupies our lives. We spend hours online collecting virtual friends, updating our Facebook profiles, sifting through hundreds of text messages — sometimes foregoing face-to-face human contact altogether.

Most of us accept uncritically the impact information technology and virtual media have on our lives. E-mail and the Internet have become second nature. Scientific American Mind magazine claims hyperbolically that social-networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are leading us into “the biggest social experiment in human history.”

Leave it to a group of artists in Pittsburgh to explore the questions the rest of us should be asking about that experiment. Future Tenant, a gallery run by Carnegie Mellon University’s graduate arts-management program, asked guest curator Kim Rullo to create an exhibit exploring the impact of technology on communication.

“I wanted to humanize the subject,” she says. “I didn’t want just a bunch of video-display terminals.”

DØ.YOU.ND3RST@ND?: Communication and Technology as Art presents work by 20 artists, ranging from video installations to Marissa Miskanin and Kari Kramer’s “communication technology dress,” with wires hanging out the back.

In “TAG,” by Andrew Halasz and Kristen Lauth Shaeffer, a sign near the gallery’s entrance invites guests to send a text message to a cell-phone number. The return call plays a series of tones allowing visitors to decipher a Morse code message projected on the wall. Another installation, by Stewart A. Williams, projects successive line drawings of the artist’s 169 “friends” based on the photos in their Facebook profiles.

The exhibit displays wit and humor. Sarah Wojdylak’s installation of TV and computer components in a desk drawer includes a small terrarium at the center. A choreographed dance video by Jessica Kowal and Maddy Landi shows a very human man and woman communicating attention, attraction, flirtation, rejection and affection exclusively through body language — frolicking in a state of nature before the advent of our technologically mediated existence.

Social-networking technology allows us to share intimate thoughts and actions with people we have never met, worldwide. It also feeds the yearning for fame and notoriety that monopolize our culture. Facebook and MySpace were designed to allow individual human beings to connect. Now they are becoming subverted to commercial ends. Perhaps today, Andy Warhol would seek his 15 minutes of fame on YouTube, and maintain contact with fans through Twitter.

What does it mean when our sense of self depends on being connected 24/7? What does “being connected” mean when we receive information at a pace that makes it difficult to comprehend events we can do little or nothing about?

A painting by Ed Piskor shows a small, grotesque figure, like something by Hieronymus Bosch escaped (or condemned) to the 21st century: An umbilical cord connects the figure to its Blackberry or iPod. A complementary piece by David and Laura Pinchot shows photographs of children speaking through tin cans and looking on, still maintaining their innocence.

Other artists represented in the show include Jennifer J. Howison, Isaac Rullo Conceptual Artistry, Brent Isaac & Kim Rullo, Larry Hruska, Cara Lynn Kleid, Prajna Parasher, Dave Rullo, Manfred Woodall and Mario Zucca.

At the exhibit’s opening, on Jan. 15, crowds talked on cell phones, tweeted and greeted each other, in between viewing the work. But mostly what was evident was a sense of community among the artists and guests — and not just the virtual kind.

DØ.YOU.ND3RST@ND? continues through Feb. 13 at Future Tenant, 819 Penn Ave., Downtown. 412-325-7037 or www.futuretenant.org

Fri., Jan. 15 — Art

Cold and snowy as the weather’s been, you may be spending more time than usual tweeting, poking and wall-posting. If so, Future Tenant’s winter exhibition might hit home. Do You Understand?, curated by local artist and designer Kim Rullo, explores concepts related to online communication. Rullo lassoed a crew of Pittsburgh-based artists ranging from the well known (graphic novelist Ed Piskor, multimedia artist Prajna Parasher) to relative newcomers (Jessica Kowal and Maddy Landi, who collaborate on a multimedia piece about communicating with an unseen partner). The opening reception tonight involves a musical performance by electronic duo Centrale Electrique. Andy Mulkerin 6-9 p.m. 819 Penn Ave., Downtown. Free. 412-325-7037 or www.futuretenant.org

Today, texts and instant-message chats replace phone calls and face-to-face communication, Facebook friends have become closer to us than our next-door neighbors, and sending a virtual drink to a coworker replaces the idea of hanging out in our “down” time.

Trying to make sense of it all, graphic designer, photographer and conceptual artist Kim Rullo has curated a new exhibit that focuses on understanding these new technologies. Titled “DØ.You.Nd3r5t@nd? Communication Through Technology,” it features the works of 20 local artists who each explore, in their mediums of choice, these modern-day complexities.

The exhibit opens Friday, with a free reception from 6 to 9 p.m. and continues through Feb. 13. Regular gallery hours are 12:30 to 6 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays. Future Tenant is located at 819 Penn Ave. in Downtown Pittsburgh’s Cultural District.

Details: 412-325-7037 or www.futuretenant.org