Mass MOCA

Fresh Grass returns to Mass MoCA from September 19 to 21. This year's lineup is the deepest yet, including The Carolina Chocolate Drops, Railroad Earth, Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn,Sam Bush, The Infamous Stringdusters, David Grisman Sextet, The Gibson Brothers, Alison Brown, Valerie June, Aoife O'Donovan, Rodney Crowell, Sam Amidon, Liam Ó Manolaí, Michael Cleveland,Claire Lynch,Darol Anger, Martha Redbone Roots Project, and more to be announced later in the spring. Last year's FreshGrass Award recipient, Cricket Tell the Weather, will take the stage for a full set.

Massachusetts funded Mass MoCA initially, and now again, as an economic development to drive the creative economy of cultural tourism in the depressed Northern Berkshire County. In addition to the Clark Art Institute expanded and coming back on line this summer, in a few years, Mass MoCA plans to double its exhibition space. A key result of that expansion will be a shift of visitors from day trips to weekends. In this next phase more involvement with the local community, particularly its artists, will be crucial.

Several months ago we spoke in depth with Joe Thompson about a bill pending on Beacon Hill to grant $25 million toward the final phase of developing the North Adams campus of Mass MoCA. This week, early August, 2014 the bill has been signed by outgoing Governor Deval Patrick a Berkshire neighbor of the museum. Thompson, as he discusses here, must raise an additional $30 million for the project which will take several years.

With a $25.4 Million grant from the Commonwealth Mass MoCA is embarking on the third and final phase of renovation and development of its 26-building, 600,000 square foot, 16-acre factory campus. Phase III research and concept design work is complete. The project is ready to move construction projected for 2014-2016. This entails 130,000 square feet of gallery space requiring $25 million in state infrastructure grants, plus $30 million in privately raised construction investments, building maintenance reserves, and endowment funding.

For decades actor Alec Baldwin has opted to duke it out with paparazzis and the gossip media. Now like Roberto Duran tossing in the towel stating "No Mas" Baldwin, in a screed in New York Magazine titled "I Give Up," is withdrawing from public life. For celebrities of his stature, who have tried it in the past, this is more easily said than done. As Martha and the Vandellas sang "Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide."

For the past 18 months, while resident in the artist loft Eclipse Mill in North Adams, Darren Waterston has been working on an exacting installation based on Whistler's iconic Peacock Room. We viewed the work in progress with the artist during the intensive final phase of the exhausting project. The work is now completed and on view.

MASS MoCA's 2012 exhibition of Oh Canada "Art from North North America," is hitting the road. The expansive exhibition, which includes more than 100 works by over 60 artists, will travel to multiple venues across Canada. The exhibition will show in a multi-venue format, on view in The Maritimes from June 27, 2014, through September 21, 2014, and in Calgary from January 31, 2015 through April 26, 2015.

The Solid Sound Festival of Wilco has been a shot in the arm for the Northern Berkshire County tourism and hospitality industry. They will return to North Adams in 2015 but not this summer. This will be fourth festival organized by the band for Mass MoCA.

During a dialogue with the artist Izhar Patkin about his Mass MoCA exhibition David Ross hit a dead end when he asked whether there is a Jewish art? At this point in post modernism, with more than a century since Marc Chagall, Jacques Lipchitz, Chaim Soutine or Amedeo Modigliani, it is not a question that one would ask a Jewish American artist. But is it relevant for an Israeli Sabra?

In the vast space of Building Five, for the coming year, Mass MoCA is hosting a retrospective for the Israeli born artist Izhar Patkin. A series of rooms features Veils inspired by the poems of a collaborator, the deceased Pakistani poet, Agha Shahid Ali. The artist is challenged by solving technical problems for a variety of approaches to painting in sculpture in a range of media. Central to his practice is a commitment to modernist inspired narratives devoid of the irony of post modernism.

The 82nd Festival season will feature more than 52 companies performing on three stages: the historic Ted Shawn Theatre; the intimate Doris Duke Theatre; and the open-air Henry J. Leir Stage, home to the Pillow’s free Inside/Out Performance Series, which served more than 21,000 community members last season. More than 350 free and ticketed dance performances, talks, tours, exhibits, films, classes, and community events will be offered June 14-August 24, 2014.

Given negative trends in media it comes as no surprise that The North Adams Transcript will merge with the Berkshire Eagle as of January 20. The weekly Adovcate, which has been in freefall for the past few years, will cease publication. As a part of the transition the Eagle will exand its weekly arts tabloid insert from summer to year round. Given the importance of the economy based on cultural tourism, and coverage of issues and politics in the still depressed Northern Berkshire County, despite attempts at positive spin this is really bad news.

Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China at The Metropolitan Museum of Art through April 6 is the most compelling and insightful contemporary exhibition currently on view in New York museums. Unquestionably some of the most important work of the past few years has been created by Chinese artists. There are 70 works on view by 35 artists in this fascinating exhibition.

Relaunching after renovations the Irish Museum of Modern Art presented two special exhiitions- Kathleen Eileen Moray Gray (9 August 1878 – 31 October 1976) the Irish born furniture designer, and architect and Leonora Carrington (6 April 1917 – 25 May 2011) a British-born–Mexican artist, surrealist painter and novelist. Her mother was Irish.

Building Five of Mass MoCA is one of the largest and most magnificent spaces for contemporary art in North America. It is always fascinating to see how artists respond to the daunting challenge. Izhar Patkin: The Wandering Veil is now on view for the coming year.

The four day conference ended on October 13. It was titled: International Opportunities in the Arts: Engaging Minds and drew more than 400 artists, administrators and participants from many art related venues worldwide. An exhilarating experience!

In 2011-2012 The Getty Foundation sponsored Pacific Standard Time which involved 60 cultural institutions in Southern California. The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles presented "Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980." The exhibition, which was awarded Best Thematic Exhibit Nationally for 2012 by the International Asssociation of Art Critics (AICA), is on view at the Williams College Museum of Art through December 1.

In collaboration with the Hall Art Foundation a building dedicated to works by the German artist, Anselm Kiefer, will be on view at Mass MoCA for the next 15 years. Combined with the 25 year agreement for the Sol LeWitt building this greatly enhances the museum as America's foremost destination for contemporary art.

Some five years previously, Robert Wilson explained, he had been approached by the mayor of Oberammergau, a community of 5,000 that has been presenting a Passion Play, every ten years, since 1634. The resultant 14 Stations were reinstalled at Mass MoCA in 2001 where they remained on view for a year. This report is reposted from Maverick Arts Magazine.

Documenta, in Kassel Germany is the largest and one of the formative biennials. Actually it is held every five years. This is a report on Documenta 11 which is reposted from a September 11, 2002 article in Maverick Arts Magazine. It was organized by the African curator Okwui Enwezer.

The September/ October edition of Art New England includes a section devoted to the Berkshires. To celebrate there was a reception hosted by the Eclipse Mill Gallery in North Adams. We got a chance to catch up with publisher Tim Montgomery whom we knew back in the day when he was in sales for the legendary Rock of Boston the pioneering WBCN. Several years ago he acquired the publication and continues its mandate as the foremost publication covering New England.

Part Three you wonder? It's our second road trip which we chronicled in daily entries, noting all roads by numbers. And what an adventure! The stops in this report include days in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, DC.

For its gala 2012, 75th anniversary Tanglewood logged its third best attendance at 375,776. This year, despite generally favorable weather, attendance declined by 9%. Non classical programming was off by 14% largely attributed to the absence of James Taylor whose three concerts last season sold 54, 385 tickets (minus comps). Even with deep pockets and a broad base of support it has been a year of red ink for Mark Volpe and the BSO. There is no need for panic but it's time to bring in consultants to book non classical programming.

For her third season as artistic director of the Williamstown Theater Festival Jenny Gersten produced an amazing three musicals in a program of seven productions. Bridges of Madison County opens on Broadway in January but Gersten insists her mandate is to create shows for Williamstown. We met to discuss the season which ends this weekend. This is part one of that dialogue.

In a discussion of her new solo CD “Jane Hudson Links and Bridges” the Williamstown based artist/ musician and partner in Hudson’s Antiques at Mass MoCA states that “The title comes from reading Giles Deleuze, the brilliant postmodern French philosopher, who explores the viral connections, unexpected trajectories and other valences of experience.” Pretty heavy.