Clayton & Lewis work out of a 120-year-old building in the Troy Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA that was once the top station of an incline train. The artists purchased the building in 2019 and run their interdisciplinary practice onsite.
In response to an existing historic plaque on the outside of the building commemorating only 11 years of history, the artists spent a year researching everything else that has been documented to have occurred within the property lines of the studio, consulting a broad range of experts and archival resources. This research has been published as an 8-foot-tall companion bronze plaque permanently installed on the façade of the building called Historic Site which is on permanent public view.
In 2021, the artists founded Gallery Closed, a unique art space visible only through two street facing windows in the front of the studio. Gallery Closed has shown work by Ann Hamilton, Jimmie Durham, Raven Chacon, Philip Glass, Cornelia Parker, Deb Willis, Mark Dion, Ed Panar, Melissa Catanese, Nina Katchadourian, Jon Rubin and many others. It’s second season has been funded by the Heinz Endowments and the Opportunity Fund.
The studio is two blocks away from Clayton & Lewis’s permanent public artwork Darkhouse Lighthouse and the other Troy Hill Art Houses by Thorsten Brinkmann and Robert Kuśmirowski, and one block away from the world’s largest collection of relics outside of the Vatican.
