Building tour, Arlington, VA, November 14, 2019, grand opening reception of Gillium Apartments, in conjunction with the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing (APAH).
‘You and Me’ is an installation working with themes of memory, material and immaterial where I build a cohort of sculptures that simultaneously inhabit recollections from my childhood and proclivities of adulthood. Concrete, wood, acrylic and sawdust mirror my life as professional fabricator while hard candy, cone shapes and the color blue recall distinct imagery and delights from younger days. This work rests between the explicit and the indifferent, lyrical and direct, big and small, near and far, material and immaterial…
IA&A at Hillyer (formerly Hillyer Art Space) is International Arts & Artists’ contemporary arts center based at our headquarters in Washington, DC. Committed to serving the public and supporting artists at all stages of their careers, Hillyer presents a series of exhibitions and programs that feature local, regional, and international artists.
Talking with friends and artist Kamran Taherimoghaddam Sepideh Salehi and their daughter in front of my new work, 1,382,400 plus or minus 115,200.
Ohev Sholom - The National Synagogue
Washington, DC
Members of the community are invited to a lecture by Architects Miriam Gusevich and Peter Miles, and artist, Salvatore Pirrone, to learn about the REMEMBER! Holocaust Memorial Park. Attendees will have an opportunity to use VR headsets to help transport you to the site.
The park is estimated to be completed Summer of 2020.
Pictured left is architect Miriam Gusevich with local resident Lucy Pearl experiencing the park through VR glasses. Lucy Pearl is of Polish and Russian decent, her father Mr. Gampel grew up just north of Samhir, Urkraine and escaped the Nazi occupation as a teenager.
Stringroom Panel #8 of 20 is in a group show at the Dittmer House, the private residence of Marymount University President, Irma Becerra.
Also showing: David Carlson, Naomi Chung, Sarah Hardesty, Joseph Hicks, Bridget Murphy, Mary Proenza, Douglas Seidler, Jenny Wu, Tom Xenakis
Stringroom Panel #20 of 20 is on view at Maryland Art Place’s under $500 group show.
Featured artists include: Seth Adelsberger, Jill Adler, Erin Barach, Kyle Bauer, Emily Campbell, Schroeder Cherry, Atsuko Chirikjian, Se Jong Cho, Nicole Clark, Bobby Coleman, Courtney Cooper, Pete Cullen, Jessica Damen, Alex Ebstein, Maria-Theresa Fernandes, Erin Fostel, Ric Garcia, Eric Garner, Helen Glazer, Cat Gunn, Jessi Hardesty, Caroline Hatfield, Gregory Hein, Elli Hernandez, LaToya Hobbs, Don James, Sanzi Kermes, Rosa Leff, Giulia Livi, Jon Malis, Dereck Mangus, Antonio McAfee, Mike McConnell, Bruce McKaig, Lee Nowell-Wilson, Salvatore Pirrone, Geraldine Pontius, David Salgado, Linda Smith, Katie Sowinski, Michael Stevenson, Wes Stitt, Sarah Tilton, Kelly Walker, Tanya Ziniewicz, and Lindsey Zuskin
Exhibition Feb 2018-Mar 2019
Artist Meet + Greets
Sat., Feb. 24 2:00pm - 4:00pm
Sun., Mar 4 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Now on view at Atlas Performing Arts Center's annual Intersections Festival, Pirrone creates an immersive exhibit in the Kogod Lobby and inside the Historic Ticket Booth under the marquee. 'A Quiet Place' is an installation dedicated to the work and memory of American composer, Leonard Bernstein. Inspired by Bernstein's varied lyrical style and socially motivated themes, Pirrone uses sculpture and drawing to build an installation intended for people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities. This work overlaps iconic imagery like the chain link fence in 'West Side Story' with the suburban American single-family home from 'Trouble in Tahiti' to build a series of narratives both foreign and familiar. 'A Quiet Place' looks to foster a sense of optimism and community through the lens of perhaps our most influential American composer.
The exhibition includes a community art board where guests may experience the act of drawing using Pirrone's custom stencils designed for the exhibit.
Finally, Pirrone created original posters for the Leonard Bernstein at 100 celebration at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. They can be purchased at the cafe of the Atlas.
Washington Post Review of "Megaphone" by Mark Jenkins
"Among the most engaging works are those of Salvatore Pirrone and Neil Feather, both sculptors of sound as well as objects. Pirrone’s six-foot wooden “Megaphone,” installed on the center’s grounds, is visually striking; it also projects voices from one end and can be entered from the other. Feather’s noisemakers combine various sizes of spheres, from marble to bowling balls, with repurposed magnets, cymbals, record players and electronic pickups. As fun to watch as to activate, the devices constitute a semiautomatic percussion orchestra. As a bonus, the artist’s “Erroneous Astrophysics” presents a playful lesson in planetary motion." Read more here.
Northern Virginia Magazine "Megaphone" Review by Eliza Berkon
"One of the most whimsical pieces in the show, Salvatore Pirrone’s monumental wooden Megaphone spans the AAC lawn, with its large end open for observers who’d like to crawl in."
Washington Post Review: Arlington Arts Center "Spring Solos" 2014 Review by Michael O'Sullivan
"Salvatore Pirrone’s aim is somewhat different. For his solo, the sculptor has cast multiples of everyday objects — dozens of cellphones, light bulbs, pencils and tennis balls — in pastel-colored concrete and plaster. Unlike Adams’s work, these are not realistic; they resemble oversize Pez candies as much as the objects they represent. Like Adams, though, Pirrone highlights his own artifice. His sculptures, although familiar in form, appear strange, even unnerving."
Walk in Your Shoes is a video feature by Leon and Angela Belt.
‘You and Me’ is an installation working with themes of memory, material and immaterial where I build a group of sculptures that simultaneously inhabit recollections from my childhood and proclivities of adulthood. Concrete, wood, acrylic and sawdust mirror my life as professional fabricator while hard candy, cone shapes and the color blue recall distinct imagery and delights from younger days. This work rests between the explicit and the indifferent, lyrical and direct, big and small, near and far, material and immaterial…
‘one day from my childhood sticks out in my mind as different. I must have been six or seven years old when I began to chip away at the corner of my grandmother’s home with a pointed, metal rod. The tip of the rod was sharp and with each swing came the desire to do 10 more. I was a young, and for the first time I felt in control, I was the most powerful person in the world, full of purpose and ideas. With this tool in my hand, I could turn something into something new and different. I remember being so pleased that I could transform such a thing; it was my first conscious attempt to make sense of the world and my role in it. I was testing the relationship between my body, action and experience, and I had to engage a building material to do it.’
Solo Exhibition, 2019
Phaze 2 Gallery at Shepherd University, West Virginia
Cone and Jollie Rancher
Compressed charcoal, paper, nails
36” x 36”
Plaster, pigment
3” x 18 x sizes variable
Plaster
8” x 10” x 1” d
Solo Exhibition, 2018
AI&A Hillyer, Washington, DC.
Pure cane sugar, corn syrup, water, food coloring
18” diameter x 8” H
Wood, acrylic film
1/2 circle @ 7’ diameter x 8’h
Saw dust, water, pigment
1’ x 18” x 6” h variable
Saw dust, water, pigment
1’ x 18” x 6” h variable
“A Quiet Place” is a solo exhibition commissioned by the Atlas Performing Arts Center in 2018 for the 100th Birthday Celebration of the late composer, Leonard Bernstein.
A community drawing wall was also created to encourage audience participation with the work - patrons used the same stencil’s Pirrone made and used to make the drawings hanging overhead.
A Quiet Place, 2018
4ft x 8ft, Plaster, acrylic paint
Exhibition Feb 22 - March 22 2018
Update: The plaster sculpture and 1 of the 4 lobby wall drawings are still on view at the Atlas Performing Arts Center.
Atlasarts.org
Leonard Bernstein at 100 commemorative art posters were designed by Rachel Pearl using Pirrone's custom stencils created for the show.
String Room is an interactive installation commissioned by CulturalDC's Space4: Art initiative. Using a 40' shipping container, I create an immersive environment composed of string filled, plaster panels. The opening of Space4 and the String Room will be at Yard's Park in Washington, DC.
The yarn used for the installation was donated by residents of Washington, DC. Nearly 7,000 individual strings were embedded throughout the 20 panels. Visitors were encouraged to select 3 string to free from the walls, then leave them on the floor as a visual cue for others to follow. Nearly 2,500 people visited the String Room over the 3 week exhibition.
Press and sale inquiries may be directed to Rachel Pearl, 239.980.0961 | rachellpearl@gmail.com
DC Congresswoman, Eleanor Holmes Norton, experiences the String Room during the Community Kick-off event. Photo credit: Ben Droz
Executive Director of the DC Commission on the Arts and Culture, Arthur Espinoza and Cultural DC Executive Director, Tanya Hilton, share in the surprising joy of the String Room experience. After this moment, Congresswoman Norton joked with Pirrone, "How will you let everyone tear apart your work?" Photo credit: Ben Droz
Photo Credit: Ben Droz
Megaphone is a sculpture built at the intersection of sound and vision. Wood, concrete, stain and paint 20' long x diameter variable 6' to 4", 2016.
Megaphone lives in the private collection of Leigh Lafosse and Kevin Simpson in Fort Washington, Maryland.
Washington, DC
”Art Activation” group show at the Annual INTERSECTIONS Festival, 2018
Arlington, Virginia
”Interdisciplinarium” Group Show, 2017
Olney, Maryland
”Artina” Group Show, 2016
Mouth Piece
speak-in and listening device. used to amplify voice and magnify audio
Side View photo credit: Colleen Healey
Interior View photo credit: Colleen Healey
Megaphone in use
Cone originally appeared in January 2018 at IA& A at Hillyer in Washington, DC for Pirrone’s solo exhibition, “You and Me.” Cone was exhibited again in summer of 2019 at Shepherd University in West Virginia, another solo show.
Today, Cone is in its final home in the courtyard of the Gilliam Apartments in Arlington, Virginia.
Concrete, pigment, wood
48” tall x 32” - 2” diameter variable
Remember! is a 200-acre Holocaust Memorial park under construction in Sambhir, Ukraine, designed by Miriam Gusevich and Peter Miles. Pirrone designed custom concrete grave panels for the park, which include glass, fibers, and glow-in-the-dark materials. All images courtesy of Miriam Gusevich and Peter Miles.
Park is scheduled to open Summer of 2020.
Watch a video rendering of the park here.
Follow updates on this project here.
Large Mass Grave
Walking along the circular path we find the large mass grave and the smaller mass grave in the corner. They tell the story of the Nazi “Holocaust by Bullets” (Father Dubois). In 1943, 10,000 Jews from Sambir were killed in four main “Aktions”, the Nazi euphemism for meticulously planned mass murder, each deliberately coinciding with a major Jewish holiday. At the Sambir cemetery, 1200 innocent Jewish children, men and women were shot in cold blood and buried alive in the large mass grave.
AAC Solos is a solo exhibition at the Arlington Arts Center in Arlington, VA where I rebuild a number of my possessions in plaster/concrete. Play and multiplicity are activated as each object is positioned in a simple, pure geometric form.
Solo Exhibition, 2014
Arlington Arts Center, Arlington, Virginia
Tennis Ball
Plaster, Concrete, Pigment 2014
Each ball is actual size. Mound diameter 7'x height variable 3" to 12"
Plaster, Pigment, Concrete 2014
all dimensions variable 14’w x 24”d x 3”h
photo credit: Lucia Martino
Plaster, Pigment, Concrete, Wood 2014
3”w x 7’L x 18”h
$3,500 / $50 for 1
Plaster, Pigment, Wood, Wood Stain 2014
1 1/8"diameter x 2"h x 36”L
Plaster, Pigment, Concrete 2014
48”w x 5”d x 2”h
photo credit: Angelo Pirrone
Plaster, Pigment, Concrete, Wood 2014
3”w x 7’L x 18”h
Plaster, Pigment, Concrete, Wood 2014
6”w x 3.5”d x 33”h
photo credit: Angelo Pirrone
Plaster, Pigment, Concrete 2014
17’w x 12”d x .5”h
photo credit: Angelo Pirrone
photo credit: Angelo Pirrone
Plaster, Pigment, Concrete, Wood 2014
18”w x 24”l x 7’h
photo credit: Angelo Pirrone
photo credit: Angelo Pirrone
Concrete 2014
2.5”w x 5”d x .5”h
photo credit: Angelo Pirrone
Plaster, Pigment, Concrete 2014
1”diameter x Height Variable
photo credit: Angelo Pirrone
Plaster, Pigment, Concrete 2014
4”w x3”d x 96"L
photo credit: Angelo Pirrone
photo credit: Angelo Pirrone
In Concrete'd, I pull a series of concrete transfers from spontaneous forms and found surfaces. Each sculpture is emblematic of its mother mold, enhancing the folds and textures of its origins.
Concrete, Paint, 2014
21"x 15"
Concrete cast of vinyl, 2014
3.5ft x diameter variable 6 inches to 2 inches
Concrete cast in plastic sack, 2014
24" x 6" x 18"
Concrete 2014
2.5' x 8" x 3"
Mayor Bowsers 202 Creates, Ep 113 2017.
A Walk in Your Shoes, 2014.
Hamiltonian Artists
Professional Development Speaker Series (PDSS)
Trajectories in Education + Art: Upward mobility and its impact on Art Practice
Moderated by Salvatore Pirrone
Trajectories in Education + Art: Upward mobility and its impact on Art Practice is a three person panel discussion at Hamiltonian Gallery moderated by Sal Pirrone. Panelist include Mary Proenza, Patrick McDonnah and Colette Veasey-Cullors. This panel explores topics surrounding full-time employment in higher education and the impact of these positions on art practice. We will look at upward mobility in educational models as it relates to identity, professionalism and art culture.
Panelists:
Mary Proenza - Assistant Professor of Art, Marymount University, Arlington VA
Patrick McDonough - Art Faculty, Marshall High School, Falls Church VA
Colette Veasey-Cullors - Photo Department Chair and Faculty, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD
In Installations, I consider the space of the room and the objects in it as one thing, operating separately and together.
Plaster, Foam 2007
10' x 10' x 8'
Installation 1 Detail
Plaster 2007
10' x 10' x 8'
Installation 2 Detail
I build concrete countertops and custom furniture. Contact me for a quote.
Concrete Countertop 2011
Concrete Countertop, 6" turn-down front edge 2007
Concrete Countertop 2016 photo credit: leah beilhart
photo credit: leah beilhart
photo credit: leah beilhart
White Concrete, cracked stone edge 2016
55"x22" 2016
Wood, Concrete 2016
Steel, Zebra Wood 2010
Reclaimed Oak, Glass 2010
Deco, 2021 stained red oak, birch veneer plywood, commercial laminate 9ft wide x 4ft tall x 5ft deep
Deco is an artwork and welcome desk .. The curvilinear forms seen in the desk celebrates the original Art Deco building design of the Atlas Performing Arts Center. The desk is a symbol of inclusivity and accessibility with its’ range of heights, viewpoints, and perspectives.
A Theater Like No Other — read more about Deco here.
