I’m not going to add all my photographs of Mass MoCA here. It’s a sprawling arts complex of many buildings, installations and beautiful things that FreshGrass Music Festival takes over once a year and the results are hard to describe. Mass MoCA in North Adams, MA itself is something like a more conservative City Museum – like – it all still feels like a Living, breathing sculpture that you walk around and get lost in – but you can’t climb on stuff!
We got invited to play at FreshGrass less than a week in advance and Heather’s excitement over it was HUGE (she’d been part of their songwriting contest last year) – and as performers, we not only got perks like discounts in the gift store and a nice hotel with breakfast to boot – but we had an all-weekend-long pass to Mass MoCA even BEFORE the festival opened, so for most of Friday we almost literally had the whole complex to ourselves.
For as much as I kind of thought it was silly to arrive as early as we did – Heather was dead on – being able to just wander this immense gallery without the intrusion of other people was absolutely the best way to experience it. We spent time lost, wandering from building to building through singing hallways, exploring the bellies of beasts and artists’ mounds.
The festival was great too – and by the end of the first day I must admit I was kind of saturated – but that’s what sleep and dreams are for!
Thoughts on Mass MoCA as a museum….
The complex is stunning. It feels endless. We got there at 11.30am and wandered till our load-in at 6.30pm and felt like we’d seen it all – but ONLY because two buildings wouldn’t be open till tomorrow.
Heather mentioned the thing about how it feels like a more “grown-up” version of City Museum, but I’m going to use the word “conservative” because… and maybe both of us have got it right and a little bit wrong. Despite City Museum’s use of the word “Museum”, Mass MoCA is much more museumy – with artist statements and clearly delineated gallery spaces that are respectful of the original building but very carefully climate controlled and well lit. There are moments when this worked better than others… moments when the “museumishness” took me out of the artist’s seeming intent… and other moments when I felt like we’d chosen to dispose of museum standards at JUST the wrong moment. The additional explanations and pieces that I’d grown used to abandon you at weird times, wondering what exactly is going on around you.
Much of the history of the building is hinted at in placards around the facility, weird little stories (like how the new owners realized a factory worker had been effectively Living in the clock tower secretly) and some of the exhibits are downright hidden (a “gallery” of playable instruments, the only part of the place that seems to be hands on, was only discovered when a guard opened an otherwise unnoticed door and ushered us into the room!).
About Anselm Kiefer…
Though there seemed to be confusion on the topic, the Anselm Kiefer building was NOT open which really, really sucks. He’s been a favourite of mine for decades and I find his work to be profoundly affecting. I really wanna see what’s in that building….
About Sol LeWitt…
I’ve never been into Sol LeWitt. On the page he’s just another block painter with an obsession with colour theory. He was great to study but he never did anything for me. Seeing a piece in a gallery just made me see the same thing only BIGGER, doing nothing for me, but LOUDER.
But here at MassMoCA there’s two floors of his work, and you are pressed into the ENVIRONMENT (minus the inclusion of the artists’ placards, which here seem arbitrary and useless – let me wander in this world, I don’t need to identify THIS piece as “Bands of Equal Width in Colour 7” or THAT piece as “Horizontal Brushstrokes”. They kiiinda speak for themselves as far as that goes) – and in THIS context, falling into the sublimation of colour and geometry, it feels like what I should’ve been understanding all along. Living in the world of it all, not trying to appreciate it piece meal.
Interesting that this installation about the Mexican / American border is behind a closed door marked as having “adult content” – perhaps there was something eventually violent in the video piece? But it seemed like overt politics was all placed in pamphlets and behind closed doors. Festival hasn’t started yet… … so we’ve still got the place to ourselves! Gallery of home and student made instruments…. Oh, hello VR… I don’t feel at all comfortable with using a VR rig in public… A really, really cool installation of action figures… plenty of usual stuff, a couple of rarities! (Landstrider sighting!) Presumably because all these LED lights are on the same circuit, I couldn’t take photos in this room without these interference patterns – I’ve never quite seen anything like it! More of Trenton Doyle Hancock’s strange, wonderful world… This is mostly just to make Kristen jealous – apple cider donuts are one of her favourite things and this was a fantastic sample of the species. No, I didn’t use the Lady Cholula upon this delightful specimen.
About the Festival
FreshGrass is one of the most satisfying festival experiences I’ve had in recent memory. I can’t separate that from the museum, but since this is where the festival Lives, I guess I don’t have to. Apparently there are pop-up shows IN the museum all weekend in addition to the 3 or 4 big stages.
The music was great, with of course a bluegrass-centrism, but branching out into different Americana / Roots territories that kept it from being to monoculture.
Andrew Bird capped off the evening and he was… awesome. Cool Live looping integrated into his band, incredible violin, cool drumming – and of course – the whistling.
T’was a good day!
