Until recently, my experience of the Pittsburgh art scene was limited to a day at the city’s Polish Hill Bowl Skate Park — part of a week spent on a bus with about a dozen pro skaters (including the legendary Keith Hufnagel) for Shepard Fairey’s Obey Your Thirst skateboarding tour. I didn’t explore the city at that time, so it was only on a recent trip that I learned the Rust-Belt city actually has a longstanding practice of supporting artists, buoyed by the philanthropy of its wealthy, influential families from the Industrial Era. (Think the Mellons, Carnegies, and Hillmans.) If my visit to the Andy Warhol Museum, one of the four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, is any indication, it is a tradition with legs. 

The Warhol is one of the most comprehensive single-artist museums in the country, but it’s no mausoleum: It’s a dynamic institution that’s becoming a model for civic engagement. Among many initiatives, it’s the first museum in the United States to fully integrate creative economy workforce development into its learning and public engagement operations. Part of its 10-year development plan of the city’s Pop District — a six-block section of Pittsburgh’s North Shore — the museum is funding cultural programming, public art installations, and building The Factory, a new creative arts center for live performances and events. Already the project has generated more than $3 million in wages, fellowships, and contracts and has enrolled over 100 students in The Warhol Academy. 

These initiatives — and their ripple effects — were on full display at the museum’s unveiling of Together, a commissioned mural and public sculpture by American artist and designer Brian Donnelly, a.k.a. Kaws. Part of the Kaws + Warhol exhibition, it was what drew me back to Pittsburgh. The exhibition, exploring the dark themes in the works of both artists, is the first to present them together. The reception reflected its revolutionary nature and the visible impact of the district, as local patrons and Kaws fans mingled with rapper Pusha T, graffiti legend Futura, shoe designer John Geiger, and members of the new wave band Devo, bringing to life a timeless adage of the museum’s namesake: “Pop art is a way of liking things.” 

Outside of the museum, in front of the mural and sculpture, the party continued as kids filmed TikTok dances and took selfies well into the night. Donnelly appreciates the power of his work to attract youth — and how that converges with the Warhol initiatives. “It’s important to have a community space where kids can gather,” he told me. “I would have definitely found the Pop District when I was younger; it’s a win-win — for the kids and for Pittsburgh.”
 

Kaws + Warhol is on view May 18, 2024, to January 20, 2025, at the Andy Warhol Museum. The exhibition will tour internationally, including a stop in Tokyo in 2026.