Exploring Pittsburgh
City of Asylum
City of Asylum is a local non-profit organization that seeks to build a just global community by protecting and celebrating freedom of creative expression. They offer a broad range of freeliterary, arts, and humanities programs in a community setting to build social equity through cultural exchange. Primarily, the organization provide sanctuary to endangered writers and artists, so that they can continue to create and their voices are not silenced. Additionally, City of Asylum ensures that Pittsburgh has a space and platform for international authors and artists to showcase, distribute, and create works of art in our region.
City of Asylum has invited many writers and artists from Japan to speak on their works, notably Mieko Kawakami and her translators Sam Bett & David Boyd as well as Hiromi Ito and her translator Jeffrey Angles. City of Asylum is also one of our partners for AJLS 30.
Click here to learn more about City of Asylum, their bookstore, and resturant at: https://cityofasylum.org/
The Mattress Factory
The Mattress Factory has pioneered the development of alternative art forms through site-specific installations, video, and performance art. It is nationally and internationally recognized as a leader in site-specific, contemporary art and is notorious for pushing the boundaries of both artist and viewer. The unparalleled support that artists receive from the Mattress Factory, while working in residence, often results in the production of extraordinary artwork that propels the artist’s career and significantly impacts the field of contemporary art.
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. The museum’s flexibility and inventiveness allows artists to respond to developments in technology, explore audience interaction, and challenge traditional artistic ideals and practice.
Additionally, the Mattress Factory will feature a new exhibition by artist-in-residence Shohei Katayama. The exhibit, “As Below, So Above,” invites viewers to challenge their perceived reality and consider their place in a complex and everchanging world. The exhibition draws inspiration from the ancient hermetic phrase, “As Above, So Below” and explores the interplay and interconnectedness of ‘all things’ through a dynamic work spanning two levels of the Mattress Factory’s original warehouse building.
Click here to learn more and plan your visit: https://mattress.org/
Carnegie Museum of Art and Natural History
Carnegie Museum of Art is arguably the first museum of contemporary art in the United States, collecting the “Old Masters of tomorrow” since the inception of the Carnegie International in 1896. Today, the museum is one of the most dynamic major art institutions in America. Their collection of more than 30,000 objects features a broad spectrum of visual arts, including painting and sculpture; prints and drawings; photographs; architectural casts, renderings, and models; decorative arts and design; and film, video, and digital imagery.
In addition, the museum houses the archive of more than 70,000 images by Pittsburgh photographer Charles “Teenie” Harris, whose work comprises one of the most detailed and intimate records of Black life in America. Through its programming, exhibitions, and publications, Carnegie Museum of Art frequently explores the role of art and artists in confronting key social issues of our time, combining and juxtaposing local and global perspectives.
While at the art museum, you can also visit the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, one of the country’s largest and most respected natural history museums. The museum’s millions of objects and specimens form one of the world’s great archives of biodiversity and the history of life. In particular, the collection of dinosaur fossils is one of the primier collections in the United States.
Click here to learn more and plan your visit: https://cmoa.org/
Andy Warhol Museum
The most comprehensive single-artist museum in the world, The Andy Warhol Museum illuminates the art, life, and times of one of the most influential American artists of the 20th century. Combining artworks, images, and objects from Warhol's colorful life, the museum takes visitors on a tour of Andy Warhol's personal and professional life—from Andy Warhol the Pittsburgh art student to Andy Warhol the Pop icon. With some 500,000 artworks and objects, the museum is the global keeper of Warhol's legacy.
Click here to learn more and plan your visit: https://www.warhol.org/
Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Garden
A green oasis in the middle of Pittsburgh’s vibrant Oakland neighborhood, Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens has provided a world-class garden experience to its visitors since1893. Explore the beauty and wonders of nature at Phipps, encompassing 15 acres including a 14-room glasshouse and 23 distinct gardens. Experience industry-leading sustainable architecture and green practices, stunning seasonal flower shows, exclusive commissioned exhibits, renowned orchid and bonsai collections and more.
Click here to learn more and plan your visit: https://www.phipps.conservatory.org/
Fallingwater
Fallingwater is a house designed in 1935 by renowned American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) for the Kaufmann family, owners of Pittsburgh’s largest department store. Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater is one of his most widely acclaimed works and best exemplifies his philosophy of organic architecture: the harmonious union of art and nature.
Fallingwater is located in the mountains of Southwestern Pennsylvania, also known as the Laurel Highlands, in Mill Run, Fayette County, which is about 70 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Wright designed Fallingwater to rise above the waterfall over which it is built. Local craftsmen quarried native sandstone and other materials from the property and completed the construction of the main house, guest house and service wing in 1939.
Fallingwater is open to the public to tour as a museum. Fallingwater is surrounded by 5,100 acres of natural land, streams and trails known as the Bear Run Nature Reserve. On July 10, 2019, UNESCO inscribed Fallingwater and seven other Frank Lloyd Wright-designed buildings to the World Heritage List. In addition, Fallingwater is designated as a National Historic Landmark and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Treasure, and named the “best all-time work of American architecture” in a poll of members of the American Institute of Architects.
Click here to learn more and plan a visit: https://fallingwater.org/