“A man and a woman lived together. On one evening he did not come back from work, and she waited. She kept on waiting and she grew littler and littler. Later, a neighbor stopped by out of friendship and there he found her, in the armchair, the size of a pea.”
These words by Louise Bourgeois, as featured on her 1992 screenprint “She Lost It (2)”, are currently displayed across six locations on Lowrie St. in Troy Hill as part of Gallery Closed’s Exhibition Copy, a series of solo exhibitions by internationally renowned artists.
Curated by Jon Rubin, Phillip Andrew Lewis, and Lenka Clayton, Exhibition Copy features artwork by Bourgeois, and will eventually exhibit Roman Ondak (slated to be on view during April and May 2024), Roula Partheniou, Imin Yeh, Lyndon Barrois Jr., Ryan Gander, and Martin Creed, two months at a time, going through April 2025. Exhibited across six unorthodox locations, each work can be viewed by looking into a street-level window.
The first iteration features a silk scarf screen-printed with the aforementioned Bourgeois text, displayed in street-facing windows at a home, art gallery, former beauty salon, pizza shop, notary, and school. The artwork is installed in collaboration with the site, and displayed in a way that aligns with the site’s pre-existing aesthetics.
Pittsburgh is perhaps most familiar with Bourgeois as the artist behind one of the city's largest, most engaging public artworks. Downtown visitors have, since 1998, seen and interacted with her art installation — dubbed “Eyeball Park” for its collection of giant, disembodied ocular orbs — located in Agnes R. Katz Plaza at the corner of Penn Ave. and Seventh St.
While the phrase “art gallery” often evokes prestigious white cube spaces reserved for established artists in formal exhibitions, public spaces, from coffee shops to libraries, also lend their walls and windows to artists. Exhibition Copy doesn’t reinvent that wheel but it does reconsider its capabilities and the terrain it can traverse. During a walkthrough with Rubin and Lewis, the curators mention how people who occupy the Lowrie St. site have, in some ways, become docents, providing additional context to the work for curious patrons, an aspect that speaks to the collaborative nature of the project.
The Exhibition Copy curators planned displays that felt natural to each site. In the home, for example, the horizontally rectangular scarf hangs down like a curtain or banner. In the former beauty salon, the scarf features waves set delicately as if styled by a beautician. The pizza place scarf hangs underneath the business’ neon LED light sign, encased between plastic panels as if to protect it from potential staining via cooking fumes.
The notary displays a multi-sheet, black-and-white facsimile of the scarf lying at the base of the window to the right of the entrance. In the window to the left side of the entrance is a framed, notarized acknowledgment of the project.
Provident Charter School, an institution dedicated to children with dyslexia, features several replicas of the scarf, all hanging from classroom windows, made by third-grade students. The Provident scarves are the same scale as the original, using its template as a model, but each piece remains unique to the student artist who created it. On fabrics similar to the original, the text is handwritten, sometimes with personal embellishments such as hearts or stars, or blotches from where a marker rested on the fabric in a contemplative hand.
Exhibition Copy draws inspiration from its host Gallery Closed, a small, enclosed Troy Hill exhibition space visible only by looking through its windows, like a gallery after hours. Exhibition Copy functions similarly in that entry isn’t required for viewing, and works to demonstrate that there’s more to experiencing art than passively viewing it. The project creates moments for art to be encountered, as well as moments where curiosity might prompt an unplanned walk or spontaneous conversation. Not in the “art-creates-conversation” way that assumes an artwork is so deep that viewers must discuss its significance or its subject matter, but literal exchanges that might start with “What is that in the window?” It engages the neighborhood, and the community of people who uphold it.
The note worthiness of the artists only matters to those who care about that sort of thing, which isn’t everyone. It's cool that Bourgeois’ work is spread throughout a residential neighborhood. It’s cool that Troy Hill residents don’t have to go downtown or to Oakland to see her work or the work of upcoming artists who often show in museums. Location doesn’t necessarily determine significance, but it can change the context in which work is interpreted, and its impact.
Exhibition Copy encourages consideration for how art normally shown in museums or traditional galleries might mean something different when displayed in nontraditional art spaces. It's an example of how art can be public beyond a sculpture or mural.Gallery Closed presents Exhibition Copy. galleryclosed.org
