With the opening of the Carnegie International less than a month away, I drove to Cleveland to see their inaugural international exhibition. Under the umbrella of “Front International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art,” projects happened as far away as Akron and Oberlin, but the majority were located in three Cleveland…
Since its completion in 1931, the towering stone St. Helen’s Catholic Church has stood like a beacon atop Main Street in East Pittsburgh. Now it’s a car club and garage with country club perks.
On a Tuesday morning in Squirrel Hill, Ceinwen (pronounced Kine-Win) King-Smith taps out notes on her piano. I stumble along, up and down the scale, straining my voice to match pitches.
The thing to understand about Rob Ruck is that he’s a runner — a distance runner and a daily runner. He’s the type of guy to run the Pittsburgh marathon a bunch of times, and when he is not running, he is at loose ends and out of sync. This devoted runner…
A Pittsburgher’s first reaction upon completing the 24 essays in “Voices from the Rust Belt” is bound to be: Jeez-o-man, we’ve got it pretty good here.
No, he wasn’t always a plumber for the City of Pittsburgh, and he wasn’t always called Pupi either. His wife called him Andy. Pupi told me this story one day when we were hunting at “The Farm.” I was his hunting dog that day. My job was to kick brush…
There’s a favorite scene in Don DeLillo’s sprawling masterpiece of a novel, “Underworld,” where a priest asks his student to name the parts of the boots the pupil’s wearing. The young man struggles with the assignment, allowing the priest to walk him through each aspect of this common accessory, an…
For many Pittsburghers, summer memories include fun days — and nights — at county fairs. In this collection of images, photographer David Aschkenas captures the spirit and fascinating culture of the region’s fairs over the past decade.
On Friday, June 15, the Mattress Factory museum of contemporary art welcomed a sold-out crowd of over 1,300 people to its annual Urban Garden Party. This year’s theme, Galactic Get Down, took inspiration from the museum’s vision for 2058, 40 years in the future.
Everything must change. Nothing stays the same, and there aren’t too many things you can be sure of. At least that’s what George Benson says. It’s a heartbreaker of a song, but I think he’s right.
The 63rd Annual Pittsburgh CLO Guild Ball was held on Saturday, May 19 at the Westin Hotel. The evening’s theme, “The Rhythm is Gonna Get You,” saluted the Pittsburgh CLO summer season opener, ONYOURFEET!
When Ingrid Schaffner was named the curator of the 2018 Carnegie International (October 13, 2018 – March 25, 2019), I had a sense that she would bring a change to this venerable exhibition at Pittsburgh’s palace of culture. Steeped in tradition and history, the show, for the most part, has been on…
According to the National Institute of Health, more than 115 people in the United States die every day from opioid overdoses, adding up to well over 40,000 deaths a year. And while statistics lend a sense of scope to this epidemic, it’s often the tragic aftermath of a single death…
“The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” is a monster of a play: at about 4,000 lines, it’s Shakespeare’s longest — full productions can easily run past four hours. (Hamlet himself has 1,500 lines, which alone would constitute an entire drama). And it’s monstrous not only in word-count, but body-count. By the…
