Particle Falls by Andrea Polli

About Pgh Murals
Spreadsheet of Pittsburgh Public Art and blog archives
Map of Pittsburgh Public Art

Pittsburgh, of all places, knows what it’s like to deal with serious air pollution. Our history is not pretty. There are lots of Pittsburghers still alive that remember needing to use headlights at noon because of the thick pollution. There are still buildings with visible signs of the layers of grime that have had to be sandblasted off most of our older structures.

Thankfully, today all of that horrible, smokey air is just a bad memory. The city and county have gone through a metamorphosis and have come out beautifully. When we rode our bikes by the river last spring we found hundreds of mayflies – the sign of a healthy river.

But what visible signs do we have for the quality of our air? Is it now sparkling clean? Unfortunately we’re not there yet. Pittsburgh and the surrounding area was 21st on the Most Polluted City list in the American Lung Association’s 2014 State of the Air report. This electronic mural showed us visually what that means.

Particle Falls was a combination of science and art that provided a visualization of the real time air quality. The projected image that resembles a blue waterfall formed the backdrop. If the air were free of small particulates, that’s all you’d have seen.

Nearby instruments measured the amount of small particulates in the air and then converted that data into bursts of color. The display crackled with light, shifted, and changed as the levels of particulate matter in the air fluctuated. The higher the frequency of snapping color, the higher the density of particulates in the air.

Close up of projection window.

Photos taken about 10 minutes apart.

The Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies at Carnegie Mellon University were involved with this installation as well. Besides assisting with the scientific aspect of the artwork, they collected data from this to add to their research.

A short video clip of the display is on You Tube

This installation started in San Jose, Ca in 2010 and was in Philladelphia in 2013. The Heinz Endowment’s Breath Project and the Office of Public Art brought it here to Penn Ave. It operated until the end of December 2014.

A Turn of the Century by Seward Johnson

About Pgh Murals
Spreadsheet of Pittsburgh Public Art and blog archives
Map of Pittsburgh Public Art

A Turn of the Century by Seward Johnson ©1995, 2001 The Sculpture Foundation, Inc. www.sculpturefoundation.org

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is where the 1883 Renoir painting titled Dance at Bougival resides. It was one of a series of three paintings Renoir did of couples dancing. In Dance at Bougival The couple twirl in an outdoor cafe scene near Paris. This is the painting that has been brought not so much to life, but to three dimensions and bigger than life, by artist J. Seward Johnson. His 20 foot tall bronze depiction of the dancers in Renoir’s painting graced PPG Plaza for a short time in 2014.

A Turn of the Century by Seward Johnson ©1995, 2001 The Sculpture Foundation, Inc. www.sculpturefoundation.org

A Turn of the Century is part of Mr Johnson’s Beyond the Frame series of sculptures. The series is done from Impressionist paintings, and on his website the artist says

I find it so moving to watch people interact with these sculptures. That is one thing that these pieces do – they invite an intimacy with the paintings that the paintings themselves don’t allow simply due to the limitation of scale, depth and access.

A twirl around the sculpture:

A Turn of the Century by Seward Johnson ©1995, 2001 The Sculpture Foundation, Inc. www.sculpturefoundation.org

 
A Turn of the Century by Seward Johnson ©1995, 2001 The Sculpture Foundation, Inc. www.sculpturefoundation.org

A Turn of the Century by Seward Johnson ©1995, 2001 The Sculpture Foundation, Inc. www.sculpturefoundation.org

HeART this City by Ed Trask

About Pgh Murals
Spreadsheet of Pittsburgh Public Art and blog archives
Map of Pittsburgh Public Art

Riding through Point State Park we came across artist Ed Trask working on this temporary mural. He was happy to talk with us and explained that it was part of an Alternative Spring Break project sponsored by American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) and the Student Conservation Association (SCA).

AEO and SCA have been organizing these conservation projects for seven years now. This year’s theme is HeART This City and student volunteers have taken on projects in San Francisco, New Orleans, Chicago and here in our own backyard. In each location the volunteers work to improve parks or to accomplish other conservation efforts. Along side the students, they’ve brought in established artists to create murals promoting the theme. Ed Trask was the artist assigned to Pittsburgh, and given the task of creating a graphic image to represent the project.

Mr Trask said his initial idea was something that showed more of the history of the area – specifically the dichotomy of how the steel industry was detrimental to the environment versus the incredible philanthropic contributions from the steel magnates. The CSA wanted a more simple graphic though. They asked for the image to include the HeART This City phrase and symbols or images for the city woven into the design and done with the city’s colors featured. So Mr Trask has started off featuring one of our iconic bridges. He’s filled the right side of the mural with the hypocycloids that we all immediately recognize from the Steelers logo (which was originally from the American Iron and Steel Institute and US Steel Corp). Other imagery symbolizes what Ed Trask calls the Creative Renaissance of Pittsburgh. He uses triangular shapes to represent the three rivers and superimposes them on top of gears that represent industrial Pittsburgh. He sees all the bike trails, green spaces and cultural venues as part of the renaissance. Former Pittsburghers returning home are participants in the transition and renewal of the city. In the center of the mural the tracks represent the strong railroad presence here and its contribution to industrial Pittsburgh. We, of course, see them as a symbol for the Rails to Trails program, which created the Great Allegheny Passage – which starts (or ends, depending on your perspective) at the Point – which is a part of that Creative Renaissance previously mentioned. (I love it when it all ties together!)

While the mural is under construction, the student volunteers have been busy planting native plants around Point State Park. The SCA is a conservation corps, working to protect and restore parks and green spaces across the country. In the past they’ve focused on National Parks for the spring break project, but this year have focused efforts in urban areas. Here in Pittsburgh they took on the task of restoring native plants to the historic Point. Working with some of Penn State’s Master Gardeners they removed invasive species and replaced them with 170 natives including winterberry, wild geranium, clethra and blueberries.

They were working hard on the landscaping improvements and we appreciate it!

The mural was due to be completed by late April of 2014. We took the above photos on the 26th but when we returned the morning of the 27th the mural was already gone.

In May 2014 we arrived at the Bike–Pgh Bike to Work Day commuter cafe station in front of American Eagle Outfitters buildings on the Southside and discovered that the completed mural had been relocated there. It was there for a few months and then removed.

Market Square Public Art Program

About Pgh Murals
Spreadsheet of Pittsburgh Public Art and blog archives
Map of Pittsburgh Public Art

The Market Square Public Art Program is a collaboration of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership and the Pittsburgh Office of Public Art. Their goal is to bring new, interactive art to the city in the winter. These temporary exhibits will run for a short time each winter over the next few years, bringing something interesting into town to encourage us to venture out in the cold.

2016

Mix-N-Match by Allard van Hoorn uses sound for the primary medium. For several months the artist worked with local groups to create eight sound tracks unique to this space. From local tap dancers to the sounds of brooms sweeping Market Square clean, these unusual and site-specific recordings make an eclectic combination. For detailed information about the various participants and links to the soundtracks, visit the page on Mix-N-Match on the Market Square Public Art Program's website.

In an interview on KDKA's Pittsburgh Today Live, the artist explained that when he looked at Market Square on Google Earth that it looked like a record player to him. He used that as his inspiration to create a giant, interactive record player using the music recorded by those local community groups. The idea was influenced by how the Aborigines in Australia relate to the land through music. Mr Van Hoorn wanted the installation to stimulate people into thinking about how to use public space.

2015

A Winter Landscape Cradling Bits of Sparkle by Jennifer Wen Ma turned Market Square into a small, unique forest. For this display, several different types of trees were used. Small, glass sculptures were scattered throughout adding those Bits of Sparkle. Using Chinese ink, the trees were painted black giving the display contrast and making the emergence of new growth more striking. Some fruit trees were budding at the start of the installation and blooming before it ended.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to get photos while this installation was up.

2014

The first piece in this series, Congregation by KMA, debuted February 21, 2014. For three weeks it became the focal point of Market Square after dusk.

Kit Monkman and Tom Wexler are the artists that make up KMA. They are UK artists that use light and motion to create interactive public art displays. Congregation was introduced in 2010 at the Shanghai World Expo for the UK pavilion. It’s appearance in Market Square marked it’s North American premier.

Visiting Market Square during the day, the only hint you had that anything unusual was there, was a big crane and blank screen off to the side. At dusk though, the motion sensors mounted on that crane worked with the pedestrian traffic in the public space below and images were projected on both the ground and the screen.

Circles appeared around the people and lines of light connected the participants. Abstract shapes and silhouettes joined the mix to produce an interactive form of art using light as the medium. Relationships were created between the individuals, the crowd, and the city itself forming a Congregation.

On their website, KMA explains their idea to illuminate people as Rejecting the historical notion of the citizen as a passive spectator and go on to say KMA’s work celebrates the dynamics of human movement rather than the facets of historic buildings.

When Congregation debuted, the artists posted this on their website:

KMA’s most ambitious work to date, Congregation will be the world’s first ever ballet designed, choreographed and composed entirely for pedestrian performers. There will be no rehearsal and no textual input: participants will simply respond to the choreography of light and sound in an embodied, rather than verbal, discourse. The score for Congregation has been created by Portland-based composer Peter Broderick.

Triangle Park Rotating Artwork

About Pgh Murals
Spreadsheet of Pittsburgh Public Art and blog archives
Map of Pittsburgh Public Art

Between 5th Ave, Liberty Ave, and Market Street sits a small green space known as Triangle Park. In Sep 2013 it became the backdrop to an art installation sponsored by The Magenta Foundation which they called a Pop Up Photography (POP) Exhibition. Meant only to last a few months, it was eventually removed. The 2013 display consisted of the sidewalk art seen above as well as a vertical display on the north side of the park. New artwork on that vertical display showed up the following year so we decided to have just one entry on the map for this location. As we discover new art we'll simply add it to this page (newest at the top).

Farm Animal Portraits

The 2016 installation gives us vivid depictions of farm life animals. You gotta love the expression on the donkey's face! From left to right the artists are: Julia Melnyk, Aleksei Kaminski, Emily Quin Dowd, Ben Finnstrom, and Elizabeth A. Sprenkel.

Self Portraiture

In 2015 we discovered this artwork done by various students from the Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) school. We have not been able to identify the individual artists. Pittsburgh Cultural Trust stated that The goal of this installation is to celebrate high school students and give them a platform for their creativity in a larger public venue, while inspiring all of us to celebrate artists at all stages of life.

The Oval Portrait

The Oval Portrait by Ivette Spradlin was a 2014 display at this location.

The artist is quoted on Magenta POP’s website as saying: The Oval Portrait is based on a short story of the same name by Edgar Allen Poe about the balance needed between the artist’s love for his art and his beloved. Here, women who have dedicated their life to their craft become the muse and the artist of Poe’s story.

From the Same Bulb

The following information is provided on the website for this artwork:

One of my yearly garden/art rituals is to plant Elephant Ear bulbs in the spring and harvest the leaves in the fall for photographic work. For me, working in the yard and making art are parallel practices. I approach both endeavors in a similar fashion, initially starting with a plan and then, as the project advances, collaborating with my materials. Every year, the Elephant Ear work evolves. The earliest images are black and white photograms. Later work includes scanned leaves, bulbs, roots and dirt. This project also works on another level, as a form of emotional relocation. One of the final stages of the grief process, emotional relocation occurs when the survivor develops and ongoing relationship with memories associated with the deceased. Working on the home and in the garden were a significant part of my relationship with my husband who died suddenly in 2006. Thus, the Elephant Ear project, by integrating aspects of our shared life, allows me to move forward, while staying connected to my past. sueabramson.com

From the Same Bulb was the vertical display in the sheltered partition. The other half of the 2013 exhibit was Organic Cosmic Mandalas by Philomena O’Dea, displayed on the sidewalk.

  

  

  

  

The information included with the display stated:

I am drawn to nature photography for it's capacity to slow the senses as well as to fill them, to attend to what is present without distraction, to promote healing and to reveal the constant change in everything. According to the psychoanalyst Carl Jung, mandalas represent universal archetypes in the individual psyche. He found that they emerge in times of personal and social upheaval, and that "this is evidently an attempt at self-healing on the part of nature, which does not spring from conscious reflection, but from an instinctive impulse". Each image exhibited here is comprised of one dandelion; no other element is incorporated. There was no predetermined design, no idea to conform to, simply a spontaneous playful curiosity applying Photoshop software to scanned negatives, which subsequently morphed into images resembling mandalas. Everywhere in nature, one can find organic mandalas and fractal geometry - from the structure of coral to a fern leaf or a sunflower, and from the majesty of a crystallized snowflake to the lowly weed we call a dandelion. Organic-mandalas.com

The Pittsburgh Creche by Pietro Simonelli

About Pgh Murals
Spreadsheet of Pittsburgh Public Art and blog archives
Map of Pittsburgh Public Art

This is a seasonal piece of public art, on display each year from the Friday prior to Thanksgiving through the Feast of the Epiphany in January. The Pittsburgh Creche is the only one of it’s kind outside the Vatican.

Louis D. Astorino is a local architect and the first American to design a building within the Vatican. WQED’s OnQ Magazine did a documentary about his design of the Chapel of the Holy Spirit, where the cardinals pray prior to selecting a new pope. The chapel is closed to the public, but WQED was permitted to film inside and it is a beautiful structure. On one of Mr Astorino’s trips to Rome, he saw the creche at the Vatican and decided that he wanted to bring one like it to Pittsburgh. He acquired approval from the Vatican and then hired the sculptor, Pietro Simonelli, to duplicate the figures.

Everything was constructed as the original Vatican creche was. Mr Simonelli made the figures; the garments were sewn by communities of religious women; the stable was constructed according to the plans of the Vatican architect Umberto Mezzanna.

Over the years more figures were added. The angel is an original design for Pittsburgh, also created by Mr Simonelli. Other figures were created by JE Scenic Technologies, who create sets for the Civic Light Opera (CLO). There are 20 figures in the creche now.

The Pittsburgh Creche, though started by one man, is supported and maintained by a large, diverse, community including 10 denominations. It’s purpose is to remind us all of the true purpose of the Christmas Season and it’s stated theme is Share the Love.

The photos don't really do it justice. We hope you have a chance to experience it in person.