Winter mornings

"It is not down on any map; true places never are"

Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Wood pile, 1 cord delivered

Mass MoCA

Views of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, Mass.

On route to Mass MoCA from the Boston Area, Rte 2 winds through the northern Berkshires including along part of Cold River.  I stopped and took this photo from a pulloff.  I turned the car off and waited for traffic to pass because I know the silence to be one of a kind.

In these hills you can hear complete winter silence except for the stream.

It was too cold out to enjoy that zen experience for long.

The Mass MoCA provides acres of space that can add weight or significance to anything on display. 

View of North Adams from the famous Hairpin Turn as I arrived at dusk

Museum History: Mass MoCA used to be an industrial complex (Arnold Fabrics then Sprague Electric) that closed in the 1980s. At first, the Williams College art museum was just looking for oversize exhibit space. It was soon realized that much more could be done with the old facility. A standalone museum was created.  The state provided funding and Mass MoCA opened in 1999.

More on arrival at the museum, after details on one of the exhibits below.

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In the museums' largest exhibit space (Building 5), sculptors were finishing up an exhibit that formally opens in a couple weeks (mid Dec., 2019).  The exhibit is called "When" and is by artist Ledelle Moe. 

 

The large sculptures are hollow and made form panels of concrete. The concrete was smeared like plaster onto frames made of heavy wire and mesh sort of like chicken wire.

The exhibits' description includes:

these imperfect figures — fallen, recumbent, disembodied, marked and scarred with the traces of their making and aging — contradict the usual characteristics of traditional monuments and memorials

The photo below shows some of the materials used for assembling the exhibit. Beyond are the hills outside.

Artist Jason Turrell's exhibit "Into the Light" did not allow photos.   Imagine light and colors shown so evenly that you can't tell if you're looking at a flat surface, or into infinity.  This photo is from the museum web site:

Jason Turrell is also involved in an enormous art project in Arizona. He is reshaping part of a meteor crater to make special underground chambers for viewing the sky. 

/click for Roden Crater Article

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Arrival (continued)

Saturday morning.  View of North Adams from Holiday Inn rm 707. At 8:30AM, the sun rises over mountains to the east.  The city prides itself on its flat-sided steeples.

The Mass MoCA museum, as seen from the Rte 2 overpass, shown below. Most of the museum is to the left out of view.

You walk through the old industrial courtyards to the main entrance, the doors with the big M.

In the lobby, a block model of the museum complex shows the building numbers:

The gift shop, ticket counter, and cafe are in the same area.

The exhibit "Suffering from Realness" is a collection by multiple artists, exploring the fluidity of internal and external reality.  

Below, is a blown-up photo showing cranes about to remove a Confederate statue near St. Louis.  The photo on display was behind reflective glass, which affected my photo below a little.

Jennifer Karady exhibited a series of narrated photos showing Iraq/Afghanistan veterans' stories relating a chosen moment in the veterans' service life, to their adjustment to civilian life.  Photo below is from the web site:

Click this link to jenniferkarady.com

for the narrative and more stories.

Titus Kaphar, "Language of the Forgotten". Below, can you can see a profile of Thomas Jefferson? One of his enslaved, meant to represent Sally Hemings, is etched in glass in front.

The exhibit "Them and US" is by a Mexican artist called ERRE.  The exhibit focuses on the US/Mexican border politics.

A large Chess table uses bottles of Latin and Anglo beers and spirits as opposing chess pieces.

Below, is a set of prison jump suits made by the artist for a family of four including the baby. It gives the message that the U.S. is saying that prison is an appropriate place for Mexicans even at birth.

Space between exhibits, are itself exhibits:

Seating to view another exhibit:

"My Pathology is Your Profit"

The innards of a piano, exposed for playing, in Gunnar Schonbeck's exhibit of unexpected musical instruments "No Experience Required".

Jenny Holzer's "Truism Walls" (1977) The walls surrounding this exhibit shows her truisums in three languages, repeated over and over all around the walls of the exhibit space.  The smaller cases show objects such as coffee cups with more of her truisums.

 

 

There were several other exhibits at Mass MoCA not shown here. I couldn't relate to some exhibits, and others, I missed because of the labyrinth of galleries. Most memorable of the above, to me, were some of the veteran stories, and the baby prison jump suit.

End of Mass MoCA

Below, the North Adams Dunkin and McDonald's.  

The drive south on US Rte 7 took me along the western face of Mt. Greylock, highest elevation in Massachusetts. You can see the frost line.  This area will get a foot of snow as I write this.

 

The End