Cluster, a group exhibition of more than 20 Pittsburgh-area artists Pittsburgh Center for the Arts

Frozen and Trapped Forever (detail), Jacob Ciocci, 2010

Opening reception, Friday February 5, 2010

Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and Pittsburgh Filmmakers announce Cluster, a group exhibition of more than 20 Pittsburgh-area artists, curated by Adam Welch. It is on view February 5 – March 28, 2010. An opening reception will be held on Friday evening, February 5 from 5:30 to 8:00pm. It is open to the public; $5 requested donation; free to PF/PCA members. Beginning with this show, PCA will extend Thursday evening hours to 7:00 pm. The Dialogue Series continues on the second Thursday of each month, and the pavilion series will resume on Thursdays in the summer.

Cluster takes over all PCA's gallery spaces at the Shadyside campus and features invited artists who've investigated the spatial device of connections. These connections might be obvious, esoteric, direct, or juxtaposed, and elicit a fundamental element of artistic discourse. Welch says these artists are, "working within their interests to profess what they know or do not know, for a purpose that is both self and collectively informing."

The show offers a wide range of visual works in a variety of mediums from regional artists. Artworks with dissimilar processes and formations will be displayed around the building creating multiple levels of viewing experiences. Some of these are:

• A large-scale mixed-media installation by Jacob Ciocci titled, "Frozen and Trapped Forever." This piece employs HD video with painting, combining outtakes of TV/film, comics and self-drawn animations, rapidly cut and collaged together to create an overload of information.
• A site-specific installation by Jason Lee, which further extends his "Euthenic Set Series," made up of elements of safety-orange painted light boxes containing photographic imagery, wires, plastic ducks and picket fences arranged to present contemporary landscape as sanitized, congenially pristine and compartmentalized.
• Individual video works by Robert Lasdislas Derr and Julie Perini, both of which investigate the relationship of history and social constructs through filmed performance acts.
• Interactive installations by Sean Derry and Amanda Long. Derry's piece, "Rehearsing Spring," combines monochromatic panels and heating elements, which hold a temperature close to natural body heat. Long’s work involves color and pattern with multi-channel projectors. When the viewer interacts with it, it takes on different special arrangements of color fields.
• Sculptural works by Dee Briggs, Will Giannotti, Kyle Houser and Anita Sulimanovic, all of which navigate the object as a process of expression.
• Painted/printed/drawn/cut works by Connie Cantor, Brian Brown, Bovey Lee David Montano, and Nayda Collazo-Llorens.
• A series of black and white photographs by Jacob Koestler, and digital color photographs by Michael Sherwin.

Thursday, MARCH 11: The Dialogue Series with PF/PCA curator Adam Welch, and Cluster artists: Dee Briggs, Connie Cantor, David Pohl, and Jacob Ciocci. Free and open to the public. Cash bar opens at 5:00pm; discussion begins at 6:00pm.

More info here.