ART // FLIPPING THE MATTRESS

Pittsburgh’s fabled Mattress Factory boasts new leadership and recommits to ‘art you can get into’

by Jared Michael Lowe

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EXCERPT //

While researching an art installation at Pittsburgh’s Mattress Factory in early 2020, Brooklyn artist Andréa Stanislav decided—or instead was persuaded by friends in New York—to stay put. “Everyone was leaving. It was just at the beginning of the pandemic and everything was horrifying. So, I decided to stay in Pittsburgh,” Stanislav says. 

The museum, housed in the Stearns & Foster warehouse in the city’s Central Northside, does have a place for artists to lay their heads, but hasn’t been a mattress factory since 1975, when artist Barabara Luderowski purchased the building to found the museum. Two years later, the museum became a nonprofit focused on providing support for artists to create site-specific installations. 

“Staying true as an artist-centered institution, where artists’ voices are first and foremost, has helped us to stay true to our purpose, especially navigating these complicated times,” says Ian Alden Russell, the museum’s artistic director. “We’re allowed to do things that other art institutions can’t or won’t do.” //

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