Happenings: A Pittsburgh Nashville Exchange

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In May, Christine and I took a jaunt to our favorite little outside-the-city stop UnSmoke Systems Artspace in Braddock, PA for the opening of Terrestrial.

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It was refreshing to see work made by people from a different city. This artistic cross pollination was the second piece of a two part series which started in Nashville, TN.

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All the seven artists in this show, Alex Blau, Paul Collins, Rocky Horton, Ron Lambert, Jonathan Rattner, Thomas Sturgill and Willard Tucker are working artists from Nashville, TN.

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They are a part of COOP, a curatorial collective made-up for artists striving to open up a dialog across the country and to create a venue that is outside of the constraints of the retail market. 

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In April Pittsburgh artists took to the road to show at Coop Gallery for the first part of this collaboration in an exhibition titled, A Gathering of Things Seen and Unseen.

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The Pittsburgh artists involved were, Carolina Ramos and Annapurna Kumar, Jake Reinhart, Jake Alan White, Anna Mikolay, Heather White, Matt Newton and Zena Ruiz.

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The organization credit for the collaboration goes to, Pittsburgh artist, Jennifer Nagle Myers. 

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In my opinion, it is essential that exhibitions and collaborations of this nature continue to bring talent into the city promoting Pittsburgh as an innovative, sustainable art market and a haven for artists. One of the things I find intriguing about this city is its willingness to collaborate.  

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For Pittsburgh, this sort of exhibition gives local artists an ability to view, meet and interact with their contemporaries in other parts of the country. These influences will hopefully lead to the raising of the bar– pushing and inspiring artists to move their work forward. 

Collaborations like this one break the insular habit to only work and show within the local vacuum.  I’m interested in following this trend of inviting outside artists to town and hope to start a conversation of what it means to live and work in Pittsburgh as an Artist. It is important as arts advocates that we never stop questioning where Pittsburgh stands in National and International scheme of things and continue to demand a spot at the table. 

- Melissa

Image Credit: 1 & 2 by Treading art, 3,4 & 5 are from UnSmoke System Artspace, 6 is from Coop Gallery and 7,8 & 9 installation shots are the compliments of Jenifer Nagle Myers