Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, PA | Museums and Galleries | Pennsylvania Catalog

Mattress Factory

Since 1977, the Mattress Factory has supported over 300 artists through our world-renowned residency program. Each year artists come to Pittsburgh, live at the museum, and create new work. During their time here, the museum supports them completely while they experiment, take risks, and explore the creative process.
Each exhibition is paired with a variety of engaging and inventive educational programs including hands-on art projects, workshops, lectures, and tours. The Mattress Factory encourages all viewers, regardless of their background, to discover connections between art, creativity and their everyday lives.
Programs. The Mattress Factory’s artistic program is focused on the commission, presentation and collection of new site-specific installations that are developed in residency. Each installation is conceived for and executed in the space in which the public sees it. The work is integrated into the site and depends on its relationship to the setting for its final effect.
In the last 30 years, the Mattress Factory has provided space and resources for more than 300 artists to make site-specific works. Each year, eight to twelve new works open to the public and continue on public view for four to six months. At the end of the exhibition period, works are removed and the galleries are returned to their original condition.
Residencies range from one week to two months, with an average of three to four weeks. The artists determine the length of time they wish to work, and the schedule is designed to provide maximum on-site staff support for each artist. Professional carpenters, plasterers, and metal-workers participate in the installation process as needed, and the curatorial staff locates materials - bags of human hair, miles of barbed wire, tons of paraffin wax, insect larvae - whatever the artist needs.
Education. The Mattress Factory is a catalyst for connecting viewers to the creative practice of living artists and to the ideas and cultural expressions of our time. During its innovative 30-year history, the Mattress Factory has provided museum visitors with new ways for thinking about and experiencing art. A range of innovative educational opportunities aims to directly engage students, youth, educators, families and the public with multi-sensory artworks housed in two creatively re-used buildings located within the historic Mexican War Streets neighborhood on Pittsburgh’s North Side. The Mattress Factory’s special exhibitions, permanent collection, Artist Residency, Resource Center and Education Studio serve as learning sites that together provide a framework for exploring installations that inspire, challenge, provoke and engage all viewers.