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MATTRESS FACTORY LAUNCHES TWO NEW SOLO EXHIBITIONS BY VIVIAN CACCURI AND REBECCA SHAPASS

 






 

Tempus Fugit by Rebecca Shapass +
I Can Hear My Blood Singing by Vivian Caccuri

 

Onsite Residency for Installation: April – June 2025 

Free Public Opening and Block Party: June 27, 2025, 6-8 PM 

Exhibitions on View: June 28, 2025 – August 2026  

Free Opening Registration

Image credit L-R: Fourth World, 2023. Vivian Caccuri. Sound installation. Courtesy of Noor Riyadh and Havas. | Installation view of no more room in hell (2023). Rebecca Shapass. 



Pittsburgh, U.S. – June 2025 – Mattress Factory, a leading contemporary art museum and international residency program based in Pittsburgh’s Northside, is proud to present two new solo exhibitions at its 1414 Monterey gallery, opening June 28, 2025. The exhibitions, by artists Vivian Caccuri and Rebecca Shapass, were selected through the museum’s Regional Open Call and curated by Irene Campolmi, a Copenhagen-based curator and researcher. 

The public is invited to a free opening celebration and block party on Friday, June 27, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. 

Rebecca Shapass is a New York City-based filmmaker and visual artist who invites viewers to contemplate the strange beauty and unsettling implications of technological preservation in her immersive installation Tempus Fugit. At the core of the exhibition is a meditative film that juxtaposes imagery of a cryogenics facility with Shapass’s late grandmother’s house—kept intact after her passing and before being emptied for sale. 

The result is a haunting portrait of suspended time, as the film and its accompanying sculptural elements explore themes of mortality, memory, and transformation. Shapass fuses observational and structuralist cinema traditions with gothic motifs, drawing on everything from Dracula’s haunted castles to speculative alchemical reanimation. The installation is built around tactile materials—mirrors, crystals, and even style vintage carpeting—to evoke a space that feels both familiar and uncanny. Tempus Fugit is a meditation on the desire to outlast our “natural” expiration date, and the uncanny potential of technology to reanimate what has been lost.  

Brazilian artist Vivian Caccuri makes her Mattress Factory debut with I Can Hear My Blood Singing, a video and sound installation that transforms the body’s inner rhythms into an audiovisual experience. The piece begins with sound captured from Caccuri’s own body—heartbeats, digestion, breath—recorded using a digital telescope microphone. These recordings are transmitted through subwoofers that animate long black silk ribbons, making visible the artist’s internal world. 

Suspended in this sonic environment are ghostly projections: looping hand-drawn animations of nude figures stretching, falling, and disintegrating. These figures, drawn digitally yet gesturally, dance in sync with the body’s sounds, forming a kinetic, ephemeral portrait. The silk in the installation serves as both skin and screen—an abstract visualization of the forces that hold us together. In this deeply personal work, Caccuri explores the relationship between inner life and outer form, crafting a poetic and visceral self-portrait that invites viewers to feel rather than see. 

 

 
Mattress Factory is an artist-centered museum, international residency program and renowned producer and presenter of site-specific installation art. Located in Pittsburgh’s Northside, the Mattress Factory hosts artists from around the world and around the corner as they develop new works. Connect with us on Facebook and Instagram or visit us at our website at mattress.org for more information. 
 


VISITOR INFORMATION


Mattress Factory Contemporary Art Museum is located at 500 Sampsonia Way, Pittsburgh, PA. Public hours are Wednesday from 11 AM – 8 PM, Thursday from 11 AM - 6 PM, Friday from 11 AM - 8 PM, Saturday, and Sunday, 11 AM– 6 PM. Closed Monday and Tuesday. Admission is FREE for members and via Allegheny County's RADpass program through August 31. The museum offers special programming for visitors of all ages throughout the year. 

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Left: Vivian Caccuri. Courtesy of: Rebekah Flake, The Contemporary Austin, 2023. Right: Rebecca Shapass. Courtesy of: Tom Little

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