The Mattress Factory is an artist-centered museum, international residency program and renowned producer and presenter of installation art. We say “yes” to artists, offering time and space to dream and realize projects in our hometown, Pittsburgh, PA. We invite audiences from around the world and around the corner to step inside, immerse and connect with the artistic process.
This is a private event for invitees only. Join us for an exclusive preview of the museum’s newest exhibition at 516 Sampsonia Way, and be the first to see Luke Stettner’s exhibition before it opens to the public!
Click here or email members@mattress.org to register for this event. Advance registration is required, and space is limited.
Drinks and light bites will be provided.
This event will take place at the museum’s 516 Sampsonia Annex located at 516 Sampsonia Way, Pittsburgh, PA 15212.
Join us for the opening of a new solo exhibition by artist-in-residence Luke Stettner.
Friday’s opening reception is a free event and will take place at 516 Sampsonia Way.
Stettner’s two-year exhibition State of the Sky, centers Pittsburgh’s histories of resource extraction, production, and distribution. Through a series of nine collaborations – many of which utilize archival research – the artist centers notions of time standardization and automation relative to contamination and environmental activism, industry and astronomy.
Collaborators on this project include: Mac Carbonell, Chris Domenick, Michelle Franco, Nicholas Kawa, Calista Lyon, Bryan Ortiz, Suzanne Silver, Ed Steck, Mike Stickrod. The artists extend their thanks to Miriam Meislik and the Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System for their generous contributions.
Refreshments will be available.
Please check in at the museum’s 516 Sampsonia Annex at 516 Sampsonia Way, Pittsburgh, PA 15212.
Limited parking is available in the museum’s parking lot located at 509 Jacksonia Street. Additional free parking is available on the streets surrounding the museum’s campus.
Mark your calendars--Giving Tuesday is November 28th, 2023! When you donate to the Mattress Factory your support directly funnels into our artistic, educational, and community programs.
As we gear up for 2024, six more artists await to begin a new creative journey with the Mattress Factory. Their residences and exhibitions will push, delight, challenge, inspire, and always be unexpected. This is only possible thanks to the support of our members and donors.
Your contribution impacts each of our exhibits, workshops, and community events, uplifting all who experience the art here.
We are on a mission to raise $50,000 this Giving Tuesday. Every gift we receive will amplify our support for these incredible artists, bringing forth artworks to our community.
We are excited to announce that this year, for every gift of $150 or more, you will receive one of our newly branded T-shirts! For every gift of $1,000 or more, donors will receive a limited-edition print signed by a Mattress Factory installing artist!
Click here to see our GiveBig Pittsburgh Page, and make sure to donate on TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28!
Introducing Mattress Factory's new look.
It's not just a logo; it's a reflection of our unique museum layout embedded in the heart of our community. The dynamic color palette and range of shapes further emphasize our commitment to artistic expression.
Want some free merch with our new logo?! Reserve your ticket for Saturday, Dec. 2nd, or Sunday, Dec. 3rd, and receive a FREE Mattress Factory tote featuring our new brand (while supplies last).
‘Tis the season for holiday shopping! To show our appreciation for our members, the Mattress Factory is offering a 25% discount on members’ entire purchase in the MF Shop on December 3rd!
As another way to say thank you to our members, ALL members who visit on Member Shopping Day receive a FREE Mattress Factory tote featuring our new look (while supplies last).
Registration is not required. Come by during regular museum hours and visit the gift shop in our main building to shop and receive your FREE tote!
We are excited to host artist Katie Bullock who has worked with both the Mattress Factory and Pittsburgh Glass Center this year. This event is exclusively for members of Pittsburgh Glass Center and members of the Mattress Factory.
Members will tour Katie Bullock's captivating Mattress Factory installation, As Seen From the Surface, before it closes at the end of the year. Following the tour, Mattress Factory Executive Director David Oresick will engage in a discussion with Bullock about her artistic practice and her time as an artist-in-residence at the museum.
Refreshments and light bites will be provided! We hope you can join us for an inspiring evening of art, conversation, and camaraderie.
PLEASE NOTE: Space for this event is limited: Advanced registration is required.
Since moving to Pittsburgh, Katie Bullock has become actively involved as an artist at Pittsburgh Glass Center. She has rented studio time, taken a class, and has been a teaching assistant for PGC workshops. They are looking forward to more opportunities for her involvement as well-- more teaching opportunities and possible artist residency.
Established in 2001, Pittsburgh Glass Center (PGC) is a nonprofit, public-access education center; an art gallery; a state-of-the-art glass studio; a community builder; and a hub for innovation and creativity. Anyone can take classes, explore the contemporary glass gallery, and watch the live hot glass demonstrations. World-renowned glass artists come here to both create and teach.
Katie Bullock was selected in our Regional Open Call by visiting curator Denise Markonish (Chief Curator, Mass MOCA). In her 2023 installation, As Seen From the Surface at the Mattress Factory, Bullock brings an ongoing archive of videos interspersed with diagrammatic drawings to life – offering the opportunity to tell us her stories and to merge the personal with the universal.
The Mattress Factory was founded in 1977, by artists, to support artists working in residence to create site-specific installations. Since then, the museum has presented and commissioned new installation and performance works by more than 750 artists. The museum supports established and emerging artists through a residency program that provides leadership, guidance, resources and opportunities to create artwork that is unconventional, challenging and thought-provoking.
Katie Bullock received her MFA from the Glass Department at the Rhode Island School of Design, and her BFA from the Painting and Drawing Department at Ohio State University. She catalogs and works with observed “everyday” moments and phenomena, driven by the complexity of truth that taking note can reveal. Recent solo exhibitions include As Seen From the Surface, Mattress Factory (March 2023), and Arguments Against the Existence of a Void, Albion College (December 2022). She currently lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with her partner and two cats.
We will first be touring Luke Stettner’s installation, State of the Sky in our Sampsonia Annex as he discusses his work within the space. Stettner’s installation is in part informed by his research with the Allegheny Observatory—his photographic methods and themes of his work are based on notions of automation and time standardization – two major factors of historical relevance for the Allegheny Observatory. Stettner has created a very active space within Sampsonia Annex. One space includes a solar darkroom built directly into the space, where images will be printed using the sun as their sole light source (with Calista Lyon). An adjacent room holding a stained-glass skylight created using dozens of UV filters will be embedded in the ceiling (with Mike Stickrod).
After discussing Stettner’s work and the use of astronomical concepts, we will head over to Allegheny Observatory at 159 Riverview Avenue for a tour with Kerry Handron, where she will show us the space and discuss its implications in the development of time standardization, as well as other major astronomical discoveries that happened right here in Pittsburgh. We will also have the chance to use their telescope to look at the night sky!
Itinerary:
Please plan to arrive 5-10 minutes early. You may park in Mattress Factory’s parking lot located at 509 Jacksonia St. The first half of the event will take place in our Sampsonia Annex at 516 Sampsonia Way.
PLEASE NOTE: Space for this event is limited: Advance registration is required. This event is only for Factory 500 and Patron members.
Give artists the time, space and resources to create remarkable works of art that help us see our world in new ways.
