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| - Bewbz, Boobies & Tittays.
Now this. THIS is art I can get down with.
On a brief visit to Pittsburgh, this was one of top items on our very limited 'To-Do' list. We opted to skip the Warhol Museum and 'go to the Mattresses' because it seemed a bit more dynamic and also, I'll be honest, cheaper.
Now, I'm not an art fanatic by any means. I look at it, I see things, I don't feel any emotional attachment, nothing's stirred, nothing moves me. I'm just dead inside. It's just a thing I'm looking at, that means zilch to me, though I'd be more than happy to assign anything 'art' a number from 1-10 to accurately show how boring or not boring I find it. Ignorant? Yes. Most definitely. But it's honest and I'd like to think there's a bit of honor in coming clean over bullshitting through some phony explanation of why something I really don't care for is or isn't poignant, and with that being said I liked the Mattress Factory because it didn't feel like a stuffy art museum. It was fun, you could move about almost freely, no guards, just guides and at points you're even encouraged to explore and touch.
What I liked about the Mattress factory was that it had a sense of humor. It wasn't all serious all the time as we quickly discovered upon entering the 'Breast in the Press' installation, consisting of a dark room with an absolutely enormous statue of a topless woman with comically huge breasts and a music video being projected in onto each boob to the tune of 'My Humps' by the Black-Eyed Peas, but with the words changed and the large-breasted creator of the work singing topless while smashing her inked up breasts against sheets of paper at a desk, as if she was writing the news with her fun bags. This was an exhibit we saw back in November/December, and still, if I hear any clip of 'My Humps', I can't help but think of the Mattress Factory titty song.
Another exhibit we walked into and 'accidentally' crushed part of. I use mini-quotes for the word 'accidentally' because at first I really did step on one of the ping pong balls littering the rectangular room on accident, but then when it popped and no one from the museum came out to yell at me I took it as free reign to do it again... and again, and again, and again and then eventually I just started picking them up started throwing them at my friends- triple words score if you hit in the testiculars! Anyway, I don't know what the artist wanted me to get from the exhibit, but I just assumed it was a test in seeing how long it took a regular museum-goer to turn delinquent and start wrecking sh*t.
The exhibits using light were really cool. All optical illusion-y and the one pitch black room where you're only supposed to go two-at-a-time was great for scaring friends. We had a truce to not creep up or bad touch anyone in the exhibit, but of course we all failed to withhold our end of the treaty and it went from a silent 2-person exhibit to a screeching, poking, fondling, scary exhibit. Again, I don't know what I was supposed to take away from it, but somehow we all ended up interpreting it as the another 'break the rules' room.
The doll room was creepy, but cool. As a hoarder, I appreciated being able to show my friends one place that might be scarier than mess-menagerie at my own place. Now maybe I'll invite them over.
The room with the water was fun to jump from stone to stone and throw rocks and the sound thing hanging from the ceiling was neat if you were lucky enough to be by while someone walked over it from the floor above, but they should really make the 'Do not touch' sign bigger if they really don't want you to touch it, because I did not see that sh*t till my hands already gave it a good touch.
The mirror room was the best part next to boobs. It's kind of silly, but it felt more interactive because you have to either take your shoes off or put mesh booties on to enter. It basically a bunch of colors and dots and mirrors and a few mannequins, but you can see yourself from all angles and somehow it was more fun than a standard dressing room, though it was basically the same, but with more decoration. Our group probably would've stayed here all day if there wasn't another group waiting to go in.
There's more to the museum than just the one building, if you leave there's an outdoor area that was awesome because I saw a lizard go down the well thing and then I tried to catch it but I almost fell in the mud and my friends were ready to move on and climb other stuff, then if you go down the back alley/parking lot, around the corner and down up the road, you just flash your badge/ticket stub and you can see their other exhibit made up of odd housing installations. It wasn't reveting, but I liked the little hidden words and phrases found throughout the house. It felt like getting the fortune slip out of a fortune cookie, but without having to eat it.
If you're in Pittsburgh, defo pencil in the Mattress Factory for a 2-hour art excursion.
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