In celebration of the opening of Gallery Closed, Professor John Carson will perform at the space (1733 Lowrie Street in Pittsburgh) on September 18 at 2:00 PM. He will sing all 1000+ words of the artwork “Historic Site” in the manner of a traditional Irish ballad.
“Historic Site,” created by Lenka Clayton and Philip Andrew Lewis, is a brand new, 8-foot-tall cast bronze plaque that will be installed on the façade of the 120-year-old building in which Gallery Closed is situated. The artists, whose studio is located in the building, spent a year researching everything that could be documented as having occurred on the site. The artists scoured all archives available to them, and spoke to experts including an anthropologist, two architects, several archivists, the author of the book on Pittsburgh inclines, a curator of the anthropocene, the director of the National Aviary, a big cat specialist, a botanist, a cinema historian, a city historian, an entomologist, a geomorphologist, a local historian, a curator of invertebrate paleontology, the official historian of Isaly’s, two librarians and many neighbors, among others.