Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

Lydia Rosenberg’s ‘Lamp Store’ Lights Up Mexican War Streets

A bushel of baby-blue balloons punctuated the doorway of here, Lexi Bishop’s gallery space on N Taylor Avenue in the North Side. Lydia Rosenberg’s new solo exhibition Lamp Store welcomed viewers with a box of Oakmont Bakery donuts and steaming cups of coffee. Lamp Store leans into the use of a gallery as a storefront, and the “grand opening” had the coziness of late autumn, early winter IKEA shopping trip as viewers stepped between and around lamps of different sizes, shapes, and colors. 

- Advertisement -

Rosenberg’s work has a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor and sharp confidence, displayed with the rich, layered eye of an artist in the prime of her career working on large concepts. Lamp Store is the third iteration of Rosenberg’s “novel-as-sculpture” series, where she uses installations to tell a wider story she’s developing into a novel. The second installment was just down the street from here at the Mattress Factory’s Monterey Annex in the form of Do this while I wait. 

“This is my first commercial gallery show,” Rosenberg said. “I was always showing in garages, until the Mattress Factory show, and the Mattress Factory is kind of like a garage — an institutional garage! I really wanted to lean into the idea of the gallery as a storefront and treat it like an actual store.” 

- Advertisement -

A New Take on Shopping

here is one of a small number of commercial galleries in Pittsburgh — others include Zynka Gallery and Concept Art Gallery — and a consistent conversation in the art scene is how to get people to buy art, particularly fine art of the caliber Bishop shows. Rosenberg’s approach is, admittedly, genius. The placement of her sculptures really does make you feel like you’re in a store, where you spend time with each object and imagine it in your home.

- Advertisement -

Part of Rosenberg and Bishop’s collaboration was to create affordably priced editions, too, in the form of six lemon-shaped lamps and six Ibuprofen bottle night lights. (The night lights were an extension of a project where Rosenberg turned gutted Ibuprofen bottles into incense holders, which is as funny to see in real life as it is to read on the page).  

But beyond the editions, every object in Rosenberg’s catalog invites careful looking. Rock Salad has a lampshade made of artificial lettuce. Lector Spector is a “séance trumpet lamp,” a kind of light fixture used during the spiritualist movement. “I wanted to make a piece about the ‘lector,’ this profession that no longer exists, a person who would read to factory workers so they wouldn’t get bored,” Rosenberg explained. So, Lector Spector was the combination of that concept and a visit to the town of Lily Dale, NY, the American capital of séances and mediumship. 

Real-life Inspiration

Many of the works take titles from characters in Rosenberg’s life, including GL, a man who emailed her thinking she was his estranged daughter with whom she struck up a friendship, and DR, her actual father, a Pittsburgh-based former archivist who was also in attendance. “I was interested in how I could fictionalize people in my life as part of these novel-as-sculpture shows,” Rosenberg said. Wandering through the forest of metallic structures does make you piece together a story of sorts — when you go into a store, the object that catches your eye is the one you place in the setting of the story of your life. Rosenberg’s work raises these questions about how we relate to the objects that fill our physical and emotional lives. 

Lamp Store also showcases Bishop’s versatility as a gallerist who’s capable of both taking a chance on a new voice, as she did with recent Carnegie Mellon graduate Ester Petukhova in September, and of expanding on a high-concept existing body of work as she did with Rosenberg. At Lamp Store’s “grand opening” on October 21st, there was a steady stream of guests during the 11 a.m. -2 p.m. open hours. Gallery openings typically are evening affairs, but a cozy storefront on an autumn day brought people in for the early afternoon. Lamp Store needs to be seen in person, and with daylight savings fast approaching, we all need a little bit of light. 

Lamp Store runs through November 18 at here, with gallery hours Wednesday 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and Saturday 3-6 p.m.

Story by Emma Riva

A footer photo with a black background and subscribe info and button

Subscribe to TABLE Magazine’s print edition.

Subscribe to TABLE's email newsletter

We respect your privacy.

spot_img

Related Articles

Proust Questionnaire with Chef Jamilka Borges

"I lead by example. I would never ask anyone to do something that I wasn't able to do myself."

Fall in Love with Pittsburgh Theater Performances This Winter

Opera, plays, dance, and classical music can help cure the winter sadness.

5 Pittsburgh Events This Week (January 13-19)

This week is for music and sports lovers alike!