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Barbara Luderowski

Barbara Luderowski (January 26, 1930 – May 30, 2018) was an American artist and museum administrator, who founded the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania[1] and served as the museum's president and co-director.[2]

With her ten-year-old daughter, Luderowski moved to Pittsburgh from Birmingham, Michigan around 1972, and decided to buy a condemned home after taking a tour of the city's North Side.[3] In 1975 she purchased an empty six-story factory in the Central Northside, where mattresses had been manufactured at the turn of the 20th century. She immediately moved in, and from the beginning envisioned the building as a place where she could work on her own sculpture while sharing studio space and conversation with other artists.[4] Luderowski founded the namesake Mattress Factory museum in 1977, dedicating it to site-specific installation art, much of it by artists in residence. Although Mattress Factory installations change regularly, with some 650 different artists showing installation and performance pieces over its nearly 40-year history,[5] permanent exhibits include important works by Yayoi Kusama and Greer Lankton, as well as three installations by James Turrell.[4]

Luderowski owned several properties around the Mattress Factory, which she donated to both local and internationally-known artists and curators for projects.[2] She lived (with museum co-director Michael Olijnyk, also an artist) in a two-story loft-like apartment at the top of the original Mattress Factory building.[6]

  1. ^ Rouvalis, Cristina (August 18, 2002). "The house that moxie built: Barbara Luderowski and her Mattress Factory". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
  2. ^ a b Baron, Jennifer (February 22, 2016). "Multimedia eco-fashion: Idia'Dega at The Residence". Next Pittsburgh. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
  3. ^ Sewald, Jeff (Summer 2009). "Barbara Luderowski". Pittsburgh Quarterly. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
  4. ^ a b Mattress Factory: Installation and Performance 1982-1989. Mattress Factory, 500 Sampsonia Way, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1991. p. 13. ISBN 0-9623290-0-2
  5. ^ Mattress Factory History, Mattress.org, accessed March 6, 2016.
  6. ^ Mondello, Bob (July 21, 2015). "Find Unforgettable Art In A Most Unlikely Place: A Pittsburgh Mattress Factory". NPR. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
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