april april

april april is an art gallery located in the Regent Square neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the borough of Wilkinsburg. The gallery represents and exhibits a comprehensive range of practices with an artist-driven curatorial sensibility.

april april
409 S Trenton Ave
Pittsburgh, PA
aprilapril.gallery
@april_______april

Interview with Patrick Bova and Lucas Regazzi

Questions by Emily Carol Burns

Hi Patrick and Lucas! Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you became interested in the arts?
lucas: I grew up in the rural suburbs of Toronto and lived a lot of my teenage years in the late-aughts online. Tumblr was a kind of fantasy outlet that afforded me a global community through a shared visual rapport. I loved Flickr for this reason—scouring thematic “pools” to gather and blog certain kinds of images I was drawn to—dabbling in actually making photographs, too. And while I wasn’t myself as talented as my peers on Flickr in terms of making art, it really did feel like an art form to participate as a kind of selector. I guess my interest in art begins there. I think earnestly I thought I was a “curator” at a young age.

patrick: I also grew up in rural suburbs; in eastern Pennsylvania not far from Philadelphia and Wilmington. I spent a lot of time visiting the Brandywine Museum of Art, and my family ran a stencil business. Entering undergrad I wanted to have a studio practice, but at that point I was pulled toward thinking with and around contemporary art rather than making it.   

From 2021–2024, the gallery operated as a project space in the front room of your apartment in Brooklyn. What prompted you to start the space? What was it like living with the exhibitions as part of your day-to-day life in that context?
lucas: Within the first few days of meeting each other, Patrick and I were talking about how fun it would be to make exhibitions together—we had a lot of shared interests. Patrick had good knowledge of Canadian art which was random to me as it’s sort of its own thing.

I moved to New York in September of 2020 and for the first year it felt complicated to be outside. I remember art activity feeling really neutered by the conditions, but we learned of a solo exhibition by Lucy Puls at a gallery called P. Bibeau in Park Slope through Contemporary Art Daily and knew nothing of the space or the artist but felt drawn to visit. Petra, the gallerist, is now one of our closest friends, and really was the inspiration for drumming up a practice in our apartment—through limited means she produced an exceptionally focused presentation in a subletted bedroom. The interface was intimate and conversational which was affecting at a time when it felt wrong to meet new people or even speak too loudly. It affirmed what was possible at an accessible scale.

You made the move to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2024, where april april is currently based. What brought you to Pittsburgh?
patrick: We first visited Pittsburgh in November 2021. We drove out to do a studio visit with Paul Peng, who we had been friends with online for a few years; at the time, we had just invited him to do an exhibition with us in Brooklyn (Heartland, Feb. 27–April 10, 2022). It was brilliant, and lasted almost five to six hours. Paul showed us perhaps every drawing he had ever made. 

The weekend was crisp and sunny and perfect. We were hooked. We kept getting pulled back every few months as our network here expanded; we were excited by Lexi Bishop’s program at here gallery, and Margaret Kross was just beginning to build Romance out of her apartment in Shadyshide. In late 2022, Sohrab Mohebbi’s Carnegie International Is It Morning For You Yet? offered a sharp and revelatory counterpose to an exhibition of that genre. 

lucas: Each time we revisited Pittsburgh we learned more of the art scene’s expanse and asked whether we’d fit within it. At the same time, the inflationary spiral we were experiencing in New York urged us to ask frank questions about how we wanted to be living. Pittsburgh holds our desire for locational specificity, our love for true freak shit, and proclivity for trees and rivers—we don’t really love any other city the same way.

The space is stunning! The combination of the gorgeous hardwood floors and the patterned tin ceiling provide pretty apt surroundings for your curatorial taste. Was it challenging to find a suitable location for the gallery? What was the process like to renovate the storefront into a gallery space?
lucas: The space kind of fell out of nowhere. We were looking for apartments online with a focus on the east end of the city, and then we saw a thumbnail of a creamy, light-filled room with antique pendants and big radiators. We were shocked to learn this very modest looking storefront with transom and display windows had a kitchen in the back and bedrooms upstairs. We were still in New York at the time, so drove out and signed the lease immediately. It felt a little too good to be true. There was a comfort in having the gallery and the rest of our life stay under one roof, rather than locking ourselves into multiple leases.  

patrick: The buildout was pretty straightforward. Everything in the storefront was originally painted buttercream yellow, and our friend Ryan Lammie helped us build a large back wall and do the lighting. My mom, who was once a professional house painter, drove out with her scaffolding to help us clean up the exterior. 

What is the art scene like in Pittsburgh? Have you noticed it morphing or changing since you arrived?
patrick: The scene was strong before we came and continues to grow at a generative, sustainable rate. There’s a lot of generosity and mutual interest among artists and cultural workers here, and of course hunger for more. Equally there’s a wellspring of art history in Pittsburgh that we’re only beginning to get a fuller picture of. 

I imagine it might be simultaneously challenging and exhilarating to be part of an organically growing community, versus the fast-paced, hyper-intensity of New York City. Is the contrast striking? How does the pace suit you so far?
lucas: For sure—the contrast has been key. There’s a bit more space for living and thinking here than there is the churn and burn. In the same breath, running a gallery is a remarkably peculiar form of business, so if anything we feel busier than ever before. 

In our recent conversation, we discussed the ineffable qualities of artwork and the pressure to try to explain or describe visual work in language that sometimes occurs. I loved the passage from a broad private wink—the show you curated off-site at Nicelle Beauchene in New York in 2023—where the title borrows its namesake from an essay by Maria Fusco. Here you honor the idea that art may only be able to speak to us in riddles, and that we must speak around art in riddles to achieve any sophisticated understanding of it. You often include poetry alongside your exhibitions. Is this related? Do you include a poem in every show? Can you tell us more about how this came about and continues in your current shows?
patrick: It is absolutely related! A key tenant of the program in its first iteration in New York involved commissioning poets to respond to each exhibition in the form of ekphrasis. It was an effort to crack open the work on view through language, and equally to make the exhibition format polyphonic and de-centered. The kernel of the idea came from Lucas, who has engaged with a lot of poetry and had ongoing dialogue with Elora Crawford about the potential for poetry as art criticism. 

An anthology of these poems exists in april april vol. 1 (2024)—our first publication designed and printed by Kristina Stallvik’s publishing project cover crop. More poems are slow cooking.

Are there other draws to Pittsburgh outside of art? Hiking? Good food? As a PA resident I’m a little sheepish that I don’t know more about Pittsburgh, but I am very curious to explore further.
lucas: Infinite draws! We’ll let you come and find out hehe. 

I know that getting press for shows can be a challenge outside of major city centers. Is that something you’ve noticed? Does traveling to art fairs help to get the word out?
patrick: We realize it’s a slow burn, and there’s a ton of noise already in the arts media. When approached intentionally, fairs have been a key platform for specific artist projects and for seeing people who aren’t able to make it out to Pittsburgh. All of it is a bit like gardening, planting seeds to bridge the here and there. 

lucas: It was only until the gallery was stationed in Pittsburgh that we received our first exhibition review in a legacy publication, so a lot is true at once.

You have curated quite a few exhibitions since you began the gallery in 2021. What are a few things you’ve learned along the way that might be valuable to others thinking of starting a gallery or exhibiting?
lucas: A few years ago Patrick’s aunt offered us the helpful framework of “lo-fi iteration” to ground the practice, which I think emphasizes the necessity for periodic pause and critical reflection as a form of self-assessment. aka, checking in and a suspension of expectation. For artists and gallerists alike there are many other things one can do with their time, so things can veer wayward pretty quickly if curiosity and fun are lost. 

Do you like to stick to a routine or schedule, or does your schedule vary from day to day? What is an ideal day for you?
patrick: Any day that includes taking our dog Dewy to Frick Park, which is just minutes from the gallery, is a good day.

Have you had any epiphanies recently that have changed the course of your work or caused you to shift directions?
lucas: Gallery practice is vulnerable in that you’re asking questions with the artists you’re working with out loud to an infinite audience of critical spectators. Dialogue with the exhibition is the value. Moving into our second ‘season’ of programming in Pittsburgh, we feel encouraged to slow down, and through practice, ask critical questions of the broader industry’s recalibrations.

What’s up next for you all?
patrick: We’re excited for the solo exhibitions we have on the near horizon: Benedict Scheuer (Columbus, OH) this fall, and in 2026, Owen Westberg (Pittsburgh, PA) and Audie Murray (Regina, SK)—among some other key collaborations thereafter. 

We’ve also been advising on a project called Middle Node, spearheaded by our friend Lexi Bishop. Middle Node is an arts and culture platform for and by the Rust Belt—a robust gallery guide for cities in the region, paired with critical writing and news coverage. We hope it’ll be an essential tool for connecting folks to what’s going on: those who’ve been here and care to dig deeper, as well as people visiting this broader region for the first time.  

And, while we’re at it, please file and save the below to your Pittsburgh mental map!

• silver eye center for photography

• romance

• blankspace

• gallery closed

• bottom feeder books

• fungus books & records

• concept art gallery

• brew house arts

• bunker projects

• maxo vanka murals

• wood street galleries

• troy hill art houses 

Thank you so much for talking with us! We are looking forward to spending some time in Pittsburgh this fall!  

To find out more about april april check out the website.