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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.

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Gretchen Faust

Vigil

1988

This play is a reflection on the (im)possibility of accepting diversity and the other. The fragmented body of the neoplasm—the fruit of unstable conditions—overcomes barriers, loves and denies itself and others, wanders around, forgetting its profession. It frequently and with pleasure divides, goes through dangerous palpation, questions the possibility of contact with the experience of the other. Poorly brought up but very successful, it invites us to a trans-species transition.

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The two rooms, Compline and Narcissus, are projects in the series Vigil, which includes drawings, paintings, and other performances.

Compline. The air is redolent of beeswax. The walls and ceiling are black and the floor is lined with sheets of steel. Lengths of black silk stretch from the ceiling, down one wall, across the floor, and up the opposite wall back to the ceiling. Another length of the material intersects it to form a cross. At certain times, the artist lay beneath the cloth for hours, unmoving and silent.

Narcissus. In the adjoining room, the walls and floor are silver, and the ceiling white. Under a covered window sits a carved trough of stone filled with water. Black silk, draped into the water, extends the length of the room forming a cross with another piece of cloth. Water slowly stains the silk. The lighting is bright but cold.

Artist Statement

Much of my work, by its very nature, involves counteracting the object-value system decreed by a market economy that views art and artists only in terms of myth and/or commodity. The work currently takes the form of performances limited to 1-3 hours and several series of sculptures which include unstable materials (salt, water, wax, silk, burnt moss), as well as projects that result in the literal giving away or eventual destruction of the sculpture or its components.

I think of the art object as a medium, through which the function of art becomes that of a catalyst for thoughts, ideas, and actions, not specific to an art audience or environment. The relationship between the audience and art/artist and how art functions beyond its physical means as an object is what constitutes the art process. To conclude, I feel that art is an activity - one not limited to pure

Exhibition

Factory Installed: October 8 - December 23, 1988
About The Artist

Gretchen Faust was born in 1961 in Stoneham, MA. She lives and works in Totnes, Devon, UK. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States, Europe and Canada.

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