8.2016 — Lydia Rosenberg

Dear friends,

Join me on Sunday July 24, 12-5pm, to celebrate Lydia Rosenberg, the inaugural exhibition at Phelan Sculpture Park.

1. Lydia Rosenberg: Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Lydia studied Intermedia at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, OR (BFA), and interdisciplinary art at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA (MFA). She returned to Pittsburgh after completing her MFA in 2015, and will soon be moving to Cincinnati to teach foundations at the University of Cincinnati. Some of her work can be seen at lydiarosenberg.net and cherryandlucic.com. She has been reading Franz Kafka’s “The Burrow” and Giorgio Agamben’s “Friendship.” If you too are interested in reading these texts, please let me know. I would be happy to share them with you.

2. Phelan Sculpture Park: Located in my backyard, 3034 Brereton St., Pittsburgh, Phelan Sculpture Park presents occasional day-long outdoor exhibitions and other events as they arise. Please come in the spirit of intellectual generosity and curiosity. I offer my time and space so that we may share ideas about art in informal and open-ended ways.

3. Thematic menu: There will always be an offering of food and drinks at Phelan Sculpture Park thematically tied to the program of the day. For this iteration, we will have a lot of root vegetables and other earthy edibles that come from digging up dirt. There will also be a grill so feel free to bring whatever you’d like to put on there, and drinks you’d like to drink.

Yours sincerely,
Liz Park

In Kafka’s “The Burrow,” a creature in its elaborate underground dwelling keeps a storage of meats as a trophy of his paranoid, solitary life spent digging, hunting, and ensnaring other creatures. We offer what we imagine might spill out of his “Castle Keep” had the creature been into human food: cellar-aged and smoked cheeses and hunks of ham. To this, we add roots of vegetables and fruits of vines, things that the creature may have tossed aside or upturned during its subterranean expeditions and occasional surfacings.

Offerings from Castle Keep: maple baked ham, smoked gouda, cave-aged cheddar, manchego curado

Served with the uprooted: sweet potato casserole, roasted carrots, wasabi nori potato salad, chilled green bean salad with pepitas, tomato feta salad, corn on the cob, mounds of grapes

1. replacement

paper pulp, paint

6.5” x 4” x 3”
Location: sits on top of the handout

2. unswept floor after a feast, in movable parts

Fired ceramic, latex paint

dimensions variable
Location: raised bed at the foot of the staircase

2. unswept floor after a feast, in movable parts (detail)

Fired ceramic, latex paint

dimensions variable
Location: raised bed at the foot of the staircase

3. Sundial
13” round, 4.75” high
Steel grill, paper pulp,wood glue, gravel, sprayable rubber
Location: Right of the stairs to the upper garden

4. The Escape of the Boat of Henri Rochefort, in bed
acrylic on 16 panels,
4” x 6” each
Location: Right of the gate, upper garden

4. The Escape of the Boat of Henri Rochefort, in bed (detail)

5. A meal is a tunnel
stainless steel spoons, steel pipe, various dowels
approx. 54” x 2” each
Location: Along left wooden fence, upper garden

6. gloves for a ledge
ceramic, latex paint
15” x 9.25” x 3.25”
Location: Near succulent cinder block wall, upper garden

6. gloves for a ledge (detail)

7. The Right Tool For The Job

found, proposed lock-picks, key ring
6.125” x 1.75” x 14.75”
Location: On the door in the tunnel entry leading to sculpture park

8. A long way to the entrance

Aluminum, rubber sealant
108” x 3.5”
Location: In flag mount, top of stairs to upper apartment

9. wearing your debts

wool felt coat, found construction debris, steel window screen, thread.
40” x 36”
Location: Upper garden to the right, along metal fence, hanging on fence post.

9. wearing your debts
wool felt coat, found construction debris, steel window screen, thread.
40” x 36”
Location: Upper garden to the right, along metal fence, hanging on fence post.

11. worm
found, annulus shaped construction debris, shoelace, banana chip
19” x 4.75” x 4.75”
Location: Top of yard debris heap, back left corner of the upper garden