Fred Blauth is a writer and curator based in Pittsburgh.
Soak Rinse Repeat is a two-person exhibition of paintings and drawings by Pittsburgh-based artists Adam Linn and Bridget Quirk. Vacillating between abstract and figurative imagery, both artists offer queer bodies that slip in and out of eachother, themselves and their environments. Squeezed, stained, slathered and sliced, Linn and Quirk implement materials and processes that parallel… Continue reading Soak Rinse Repeat: Adam Linn and Bridget Quirk
Ten Futures finds its theme perched between the science fiction genre and the futures unfolding around us in real time. Through drawings, photographs, video, sculptures, short stories, and a video game, the artists in the exhibition daydream, fear for, and build their own imagined worlds. The term science fiction can be defined simply be reversing… Continue reading Ten Futures
In the last year or so, I lost my grandmother, my grandfather, moved, quit a job, quit another job and tried to stop smoking at least five times. No one living today is an expert on what comes after death; however, we can all relate to when someone, something or somewhere ends. We’ve anticipated the… Continue reading Essay / The Big Rip
The End is a group exhibition of AAP (Associated Artists of Pittsburgh) artists who reflect on ideas of when something ends, stops, or ceases to exist. Endings — be it the end of a movie, the waking from a bad dream, a breakup, or even death itself — have proven to be a captivating subject matter… Continue reading The End
Pocket is a collage and assemblage exhibition inspired by the precious and meaningless objects we carry around with us and the power of a collector to transform one into another. By shrinking the stage for these artworks to play on, the exhibition highlights the diminutive and the different ways small things can define, reveal, shape… Continue reading Pocket
What does the word identity even mean? Is it our most public self or our most private? Is it defined by others, inherited, or self-made? Can I have more than one? What happens when I start to become close to someone else? How do I respect another’s identity? How do I share my own? Identity… Continue reading Essay / Him: You, Me: ME!!!
Born out of the need to exhibit playable artwork without the baggage of 80s arcade structures or nerdy conventions settings, LIKELIKE popped up last February in Paolo Pedercini (executive director) and Tenley Schmida’s (reluctant director) garage in the Garfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA. Since its conception, LIKELIKE has hosted four group exhibitions which have dealt… Continue reading Interview / LIKELIKE
HICKEY irreverently presents tales of intimacy and identity through the works of six queer men. By using traditional mediums such as paint, paper, pencil and fiber, then subverting their applications, the artists in HICKEY simultaneously make light of and shine light on, the absurdities of finding one’s self and then sharing with another.
Makerspaces are places one can go to use tools that are otherwise inaccessible or unaffordable. Oftentimes, these tools are critical in the development of an artist’s practice. No one knows this better than Charlie Barber, Christina Lee, Aaron Regal, Anna Shepperson and Matt Van Asselt, the artist lead team behind PULLPROOF Studio, an in-progress printmaking… Continue reading News / PULLPROOF Studio aims to provide printmaking tools to the Pittsburgh arts community
The exhibition layers Warhol’s commercial work with his personal life during the 1950s while living in New York City. The looping layout of the second floor of The Andy Warhol Museum can sometimes feel disorienting. But in Adman: Warhol Before Pop, it works in the exhibition’s favor by presenting multiple narratives simultaneously. The exhibition, which… Continue reading Review / Adman, Warhol before Pop at The Andy Warhol Museum
Did you know Leonardo Da Vinci invented the Bedazzler? It’s true. Sometime around the later half of the 15th Century, Da Vinci drafted a machine that punched out small discs of metal with holes in the middle, aka sequins, to be adorned to clothing. While the machine only existed as a sketch (and technically not really… Continue reading Interview / Eric Anthony Berdis at Bunker Projects
There are many balancing acts at play in the two-person show Ephemeral, by Sara Catapano and Hannah Pierce. Growth and decay, nature versus man, vice and virtue, death and birth. Even physically, Catapano’s and Pierce’s sculptures seem to twist and pull apart from each other in complicated compositions. It is this tension that unites the… Continue reading Review / Ephemeral: Sara Catapano and Hannah Pierce at Boxheart Gallery
Ingrid Schaffner, born in Pittsburgh and previously chief curator of The Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, has returned to take on the Carnegie International, CMOA’s – and Pittsburgh’s – signature and most exciting exhibition of contemporary art. Dating back to 1896, the exhibition is the second oldest survey of international contemporary art in the world. After three years of… Continue reading Interview / Ingrid Schaffner
In drawing inspiration from her experiences as a US immigrant, Su Su creates dreamlike paintings that blur the familiar with foreign, the mundane with surreal. Following a rigorous, traditional training background in Beijing, Su Su moved to Pittsburgh, PA to study at Carnegie Mellon University where she earned her MFA in Scenic Design from the… Continue reading Interview / Su Su
“I knew, right off the bat, that if I openly associated myself with these people, even though I was really into what they were doing, everyone would drag me through the dirt for it.” Paul Peng tells me this as we discuss his art practice while sitting in BOOM Concepts, where his solo exhibition BODY… Continue reading Review / Paul Peng at BOOM Concepts
In celebration of The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust's first Gallery Crawl of the year, I took a final look at the impressive dual exhibitions of local artist Kristen Letts Kovak at 707 and 709 Galleries; heard from Ryoichi Kurokawa, one of two internationally-based artists soon to be featured at Wood Street Galleries; and shared a sneak… Continue reading Review / Past, Present, and Future at Cultural Trust
When I meet Kristen Letts Kovak to talk about her dual gallery exhibitions at 707 & 709, she tells me that she looked over my prepared questions at lunch today. “Oh, I’ve just jotted down a few notes,” she says casually. A quick peek at her notebook reveals impeccably neat handwriting and when she speaks… Continue reading +500 / Kristen Letts Kovak
Full Bleed presents excerpts from Adam Milner’s obsessive collections of images pulled from thousands of magazines. Through the act of isolating, cropping, masking and arranging, Milner’s personal archives reveal new connections through seemingly ordinary images one might otherwise flip by in a magazine or overhear in a pop song. These images are not merely hacked… Continue reading Full Bleed: Adam Milner
For fundamentally 2D works, the paintings in The Long Run, curated by Brandon Boan at SPACE, speak to the complexities of surface and texture. A sculptor himself, as well as printmaker, Boan’s eye for these elements shows us seven contemporary artists whose paintings drip, shine, fuzz and bend in brilliant color. Continue reading at The Cultural… Continue reading Review / The Long Run at Space Gallery
In printing, a “full bleed” refers to an image printed across an entire page, up to and beyond the edge of the paper. To create this effect, printers must include a border which will then be sliced off, either by hand or machine, never to be seen by the viewer. The resulting image has been… Continue reading Essay / Brother Son Boyfriend Baby
Fred Blauth 