Mattress Factory installations explore race, sexuality, ecology
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Two new exhibits at the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh’s North Side explore timely issues of life on earth.
“Feeling the Spirit in the Dark,” by Pittsburgh-based artist Shikeith, and “The Museum of All Things,” by Canadian-born artist Jennifer Angus, will run through March 31 in the installation art facility’s Monterey Annex.
“Feeling the Spirit” explores the lasting effects of slavery and other societal issues on the psyches of Black gay men. “Museum” illustrates the importance of insect life for the survival of humankind.
The new site-specific installations are the first in a new series of shows by Mattress Factory artists in residence.
Interior world
A resident of Pittsburgh’s Friendship section, Shikeith works in photography, filmmaking, sculpture and other visual art mediums. He says he is “a gay Black man with thematics in my work dealing with the interior world of Black gay men.”
“My work tells the tale of what haunts gay Black men in the aftermath of slavery, how they’ve taken up their histories and dealt with and internalized these issues,” he says. “I aim to make artwork that moves beyond a focus on the bodies of black men but into the deepness of our psyches where identities are formed, and black manhood can be imagined as an indeterminate and unfixed space.”
His exhibition includes three installations featuring sculpture, video and light and sound, he says, with “things glowing, things dark, rooms filled with water and many surprises around the corner.”
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“(Creating) this particular show was very emotional for me, granted the state were in,” says Shikeith. “My grandmother passed from coronavirus in the midst of creating this, and she’s the one who taught me to imagine through the dark.”
Insect apocalypse
In “Museum,” Angus calls attention to the rapid, worldwide decline in insect populations.
“How to bring notice to an insect apocalypse that has been normalized is the challenge,” Angus says. “Climate change, colony collapse and many of the most urgent issues of our time — including gun violence, systemic racism, and genocide — are human-centered devastating facts of contemporary life. And all are areas where individuals, one by one, can make a difference.”
Her installations take advantage of the specifics of the Monterey Annex, including the windows; long, narrow gallery space; and urban neighborhood setting.
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In “insect jelly,” natural light streaming through insect specimens preserved in gelatin creates a stained glass effect. A cabinet of curiosities comprises 170 drawers filled with insects and diorama-type scenes.
A fairy tale-like animal dinner party with native Pennsylvania animals illustrates “a food chain beginning with the lowliest creatures, flies, right up to the largest animal at the table, a bear.”
Timed visits
A Philadelphia native and Penn State graduate, Shikeith also holds an MFA in sculpture from The Yale School of Art. His first solo exhibition was in 2014 at Bunker Projects in Garfield, which led to connections and financial support that influenced his decision to move to Pittsburgh. He has shown work around the country and internationally.
Angus is a professor in the Design Studies department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was educated at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has exhibited internationally in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Spain.
The Mattress Factory is open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesdays-Sundays, with extended hours until 8 p.m. Wednesdays. To limit museum occupancy, visitors must purchase advance timed-entry tickets at mattress.org.