DESTINATION BERKSHIRES, BERKSHIRES, MA MA & & BEYOND BEYOND
BERKSHIRES & BEYOND
DESTINATION BERKSHIRES, BERKSHIRES, MA MA & & BEYOND BEYOND
Calpulli Mexican Dance Company at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. Photo: Hayim Heron.
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ver since the 19th century railroad made the Berkshires easily accessible, the literati and the glitterati of Boston and New York have flocked to the region, to enjoy cooler summers, spectacular fall scenery and a host of winter sports. With this long ingrained custom of embracing an influx of sophisticated visitors, it’s no surprise that the lively cultural scene of the Berkshires combines traditional art—and artisanal craft—with cutting-edge innovation. Starting in southern Massachusetts, moving north along the New York-Massachusetts border, and beyond into New York state, the region offers an abundance of museums, galleries and outdoor sculpture parks, as well as summer festivals for fine arts and crafts, music and dance. Gracefully combining tradition and innovation, Chesterwood is an historic site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Stockbridge that includes the summer home, grounds and studio of Daniel Chester French
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(1850-1931). Creator of more than 100 public sculptures, French is best known for The Minute Man, in Concord, MA, and Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. This July, Chesterwood will open a new gallery to showcase more than 150 neverbefore-exhibited objects from its collection, designed to provide a window into French’s working methods, techniques and creative processes. With funding from the Henry Luce Foundation, a former storage area adjoining the Barn Gallery becomes a state-of-the-art exhibition space to display paintings, models, maquettes and finished works in plaster, marble and bronze. But contemporary art also has pride of place, in Contemporary Sculpture at Chesterwood (opening reception on June 16, from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m., RSVP required). Curated by Sharon Bates, the 39th annual outdoor sculpture exhibition at Chesterwood focuses on site-specific works placed throughout the grounds and along woodland walks.
Bates, who will lead a tour of the exhibition on June 17, at 11:00 a.m., was a 2016 Artist-inResidence at Chesterwood, and also the founding director of the Albany International Airport Art & Culture Program, where she curated rotating exhibitions, site-specific projects and satellite exhibitions in the Airport Gallery and terminal. Visit Chesterwood’s website for dates of special events, including curator talks, artist presentations, art classes and family activities. At Schantz Galleries, in Stockbridge, the spotlight shines on contemporary glass and the emphasis is on innovation. The gallery showcases the work of more than 50 internationally recognized artists working in glass, including Dale Chihuly, Dan Dailey, Marvin Lipofsky, William Morris, Paul Stankard and Lino Tagliapietra. In addition to curating exhibitions at the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass (in Neenah, WI), the New Britain (CT) Museum of American Art, and the Morris Museum (in Morristown, NJ), gallery director Jim Schantz
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BERKSHIRES & BEYOND curated Chesterwood’s outdoor sculpture exhibition, The Nature of Glass: Contemporary Sculpture in 2016. And while Schantz represents international artists, the summer of 2017 also brings New England glass artists into focus. Made In N.E., on view May 8–June 24, highlights 14 contemporary glass artists from New England, whose work embodies diverse techniques in this highly fluid medium. Most commonly, the term “Art Glass” can conjure up a work of art created in a hot furnace with a blowpipe yet this exhibit gives a glimpse into the diverse techniques that creative hands and minds can employ in contemporary glass. Made In N.E. is a curated exhibition of blown, cast, cut, fused, laminated and sculpted works in glass created by artists in New England,
including William Carlson, Daniel Clayman, Dan Dailey, Bernie D’Onofrio, Robin Grebe, Dorothy Hafner, Eric Hilton, Sidney Hutter, K. William LeQuier, Martin Rosol, Thomas Scoon, Harue Shimomoto, Jen Violette and Steven Weinberg. The Diana Felber Gallery, in neighboring West Stockbridge, celebrates its first anniversary in May, in a beautiful space that once housed a glass-blowing workshop and showroom. Operated by Diana Felber, the gallery displays and sells contemporary painting, sculpture and crafts, showcasing some of Felber’s favorite artists and highlighting some of her discoveries of new fine artists and artisans. In May/June, the gallery will feature five-foot square paintings by David Skillicorn,
who turned to vibrantly colored abstract painting after 25 years of exploring the world and the texture of landscape as a documentary filmmaker. Also on display will be pastels by Murray Zimiles, who combines training in engineering and art to impose a loose grid over luminous landscapes. Another highlight during May/June will be eight paintings of fire hydrants by Helga Orthofer. Exuding strength, charm and anthropomorphic qualities, the life-sized fire hydrants are rendered in pastels in a palette of predominant yellows, blues and reds, and represent actual hydrants in the Berkshires. Watercolors by Judy Hawkins, from Vermont, are also on display, along with photographs of icy, beautiful fractal images of frost by John MacGruer and photo-montaged
EXPLORE CHESTERWOOD!
Home, Studio and Gardens of Lincoln Memorial sculptor Daniel Chester French in Stockbridge, Massachusetts • contemporary sculpture • exhibitions, events, classes • woodland walks
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MAY 27 - OCT 9, 2017 Open Daily 10am - 5pm
Chesterwood.org
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BERKSHIRES & BEYOND skyscapes with swirling clouds and streaks of reds and oranges by Jane McWhorter. Creating another kind of skyscape in West Stockbridge, floating from the ceiling, a striking variety of contemporary metal and fabric mobiles, all designed by Joel Hotchkiss, engulf the viewer at Hotchkiss Mobiles Gallery & Art Studio. Working for both indoor and garden settings, Joel has been designing and creating mobiles for private and commercial commissions since the early 1980s, and his mobiles have been represented in museum stores throughout the United States including the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. This summer, daily “Open Studios” welcome
visitors to enter and tour the large workshop where the mobiles are designed and fabricated. In addition to the wide array of mobiles overhead, the gallery offers beautiful handcrafted jewelry, American crafts, and unique lines of women’s designer clothing, all selected by Sandra Hotchkiss, who offers every customer her personal attention. But in West Stockbridge, coffee also helps fuel the lively culture of the community. No. Six Depot Roastery and Café is a bustling café, art gallery/live event space, and coffee roastery, all housed in the oldest train station in the Berkshires. The award-winning café (Best in New England, Yankee Magazine ’16) serves full breakfast and lunch using local ingredients, with house made specialties
like Argentine-roasted meats, granola, eggs Marrakesh, countywide famous bacon and house-roasted coffee. No. Six Depot also has a front porch ”scoop and shake” window for smoothies, shakes, and ice cream. The art gallery, located in the light-filled central space of the station, houses rotating exhibits featuring local and international visual artists, and hosts an array of live events including music, theater, dance, spoken word, tastings, pop up dinners, film screenings, openings and parties. The roastery itself is located on the north side of the café. The café imports the most sustainable, highest quality coffee from all over the world and roasts it right in the station on a beautiful Probat P25. Stop by to savor the roasting, see the art or enjoy the beautiful view of Lenox
May 20 – September 4, 2017 GUITAR: The Instrument That Rocked the World is a touring exhibition of the National GUITAR Museum. Sponsored by
Boson Early Music Fesival Pergolesi’s
La Serva Padrona Livietta e Tracollo
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Sat, June 24 at 8pm | Sun, June 25 at 3pm mahaiwe performing arts Center, Great BarrinGton, ma
Live opera in the BerkShireS!
617-661-1812 | www.BemF.orG 53 Art New England M a y / J u n e
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Open Daily 10 am to 5 pm; Sunday noon to 5 pm 39 South Street, Pittsfield, MA 413.443.7171 Berkshiremuseum.org
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BERKSHIRES & BEYOND Mountain on the porch. Visitors are welcome to have a coffee, a salad, a glass of wine or beer and stay a while. Another West Stockbridge highlight, the Stanmeyer Gallery and Shaker Dam Coffeehouse occupies a 186-year-old building that was once the home of the official keeper of the Shaker Dam. The organic coffees and teas come from around the world, and the artwork has a similar global span. The gallery contains 30-40 framed, hand-printed, limited edition photographs, many focused on the social issues that have driven co-owner John Stanmeyer’s work over his 13-year career with National Geographic: food security, poverty eradication, women’s empowerment, and peace and dialogue between nations. And while the display
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is fluid and free ranging, the gallery serves as a permanent home for his work, reflecting the range of issues he explores through the power of photography. When Stanmeyer is at this home base, customers in the coffee shop may have a conversation with the artist. “I love coffee as a catalyst for conversation,” says Stanmeyer. But if you miss him during May, it could be because he’s in Armenia, for a peace initiative and book launch for the Bridging Stories project—a program he initiated (with an Armenian photographer and a Turkish photographer) to train young Turks and Armenians to photograph their daily lives with cellphones and share the images on Instagram in an effort to recognize their cultural similarities and bridge historical differences.
Every picture tells a story, but at Neumann Fine Art, in Hillsdale, NY (just west of West Stockbridge), the gallery and the paintings have a backstory. Artist/owner Jeffrey L. Neumann worked as a radio disc jockey, graphic designer and art director before devoting 20 years to the fine paper industry. A battle with non-Hodgkin lymphoma led him to leave the corporate world to make art and earn a Master of Education in Visual Arts at Springfield (MA) College. The art gallery followed, with a focus on contemporary scenes from the western MA/eastern NY region. From May 6–June 24, Neumann Fine Art presents oil paintings by Kenneth Young, with an opening reception on May 6, at 5:30 p.m. The exhibition features Young’s Hudson Warren
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BERKSHIRES & BEYOND Street paintings, a series of rainy-day street scenes of his hometown. As a landscape painter, Young is always attuned to light. One rainy day, however, offered revelation: “I noticed how the rain on my windshield transformed the buildings, cars and people into lively, dancing, jewel-like ribbons of color that energetically danced across the glass. Fascinated, I turned off the wipers and stopped in the middle of street, took out my camera and shot through the rain soaked windshield.” The result was the first of his Hudson Warren Street series. The exhibit also showcases Young’s virtuosity in figurative work, landscapes, and seascapes. Swing back to West Stockbridge wearing your most comfortable shoes, to best enjoy the Turn Park Art Space. This brand new outdoor
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sculpture park plus recreational space is built into the Berkshires landscape, and opens to the public on May 14, boasting hills, meadows, a lake and a 65-foot vertical drop offering breathtaking views of a former quarry. Turn Park Art Space combines a sculpture park, exhibition venues and a stone amphitheater for outdoor performances. Conceived and founded by Igor Gomberg and Katya Brezgunova as an art space and a place for exploration for both children and adults, the park showcases contemporary architecture and sculpture. A collaborative project designed by Moscow-based architect Alexander Konstantinov and New York/Massachusetts architect Grigori Fateyev, the park was created to establish an ongoing dialogue between visitors, nature and art. Start
at the Gate House, a modern structure inspired by the Berkshire Hills, and follow paths that wind through fields and woodlands and then lead past the amphitheater and the lake. Later stages of the project will include site-specific children’s playgrounds and pavilions that house a gallery, a restaurant, a gift shop and a floating dock. In addition to a unique collection of outdoor sculptures scattered across the landscape, ongoing art exhibitions and temporary installations, Turn Park also programs live music, contemporary theater and performance. To enjoy another outdoor sculpture installation, go east to the arts-centric city of Easthampton and then gaze ahead, in time, to August and mark your calendar. Art in the Orchard 2017 is a juried exhibition and festival
N.E. GLASS
May 12 - June 25 An exhibition of works by glass artists who live in New England.
William Carlson Daniel Clayman
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Dan Dailey
Anniversary Season
Bernie D’Onofrio Robin Grebe Dorothy Hafner Eric Hilton Sidney Hutter K. William LeQuier Martin Rosol photo: John Polak
Tom Scoon Harue Shimomoto
Camille A. Brown; photo Christopher Duggan
Jen Violette Steven Weinberg
Steven Weinberg, Virtual Blue, 2016, cast glass
Schantz Galleries 413.243.0745 jacobspillow.org
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schantzgalleries•com
contemporary glass 3 Elm Street, Stockbridge, MA 413•298•3044
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BERKSHIRES & BEYOND
Preston Singletary and Dante Marioni, Black Wolves (detail), 2014, 16 x 15 x 13½". Photo: Russell Johnson. Courtesy of Schantz Galleries.
located on the grounds of Park Hill Orchard, a working New England apple orchard. Open from August 13 through Thanksgiving, the exhibition spreads along a walking trail to showcase outdoor sculpture and installations by local and regional artists. A labyrinth extends that self-guided trail, and most weekends also include live events such as music, story-telling, and theater performances. Art in the Orchard 2017 is the fourth exhibition to be arranged among the apple trees, stemming from the serendipitous match between orchard owners Alane Hartley and Russell Braen’s desire to have their farm play an active role in the community and Easthampton gallery
owner Jean-Pierre Pasche’s dream of setting up an outdoor sculpture show similar to one he saw installed on farm lands in his native Switzerland. The original exhibition of 2011, which began with a Massachusetts Cultural Council grant on the theme of “Art in Unusual Places,” has evolved into a successful biennial event celebrating sculpture and community— and apples—along with other seasonal harvests, in many forms and flavors. Looking north, in Lenox, the Frelinghuysen Morris House and Studio provides a look into the fascinating lives of artists/art collectors Suzy Frelinghuysen and George L. K. Morris. Their unique two-story House, made
of stucco and glass block, is the first Modern structure built in New England (beating out the Wadsworth Athenaeum’s Avery Memorial Building in Hartford, CT, and the Gropius House in Lexington, MA). The House feels like a home, albeit a home filled with museumquality modern art and furnishings, because that’s exactly what it is. Lively, adventurous and artistic, Frelinghuysen and Morris were friends with Modern Art masters Picasso, Braque, Leger and Gris, and their works intermingle throughout House and Studio. Last summer, See Their World displayed newly digitized 16-mm color films dating back to 1936– 38, recorded by Morris and Frelinghuysen in Switzerland and Latin America. For Summer 2017, the final fragile films have been digitized, revealing 80-year-old scenes from Korea, India and the Netherlands. In the spirit of Frelinghuysen and Morris, the House and Studio invite an active approach to enjoying art. All guided tours encourage viewers to explore their own creativity; on Friday mornings, professional artists from the Berkshires give plein air painting demonstrations and discuss their techniques: Morris Bennett on June 23 and Diane Firtell on June 30. On July 1, director/artist Kinney Frelinghuysen offers the summer’s first workshop on how to look at modern art and unleash your inner artist. Founded by photographer Cassandra Sohn in 2011, Sohn Fine Art Gallery, also in Lenox, specializes in innovative contemporary photography by international and local artists. In honor of spring, Sohn Fine Art
Dedicated to art that expands the boundaries we create so as to see more of what is possible...
ST. FRANCIS GALLLERY An ever changing impressive collection of well established local artists and exciting new talent Friday–Monday 10 a.m.–5 p.m. 1370 Pleasant St., Lee, MA
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BERKSHIRES & BEYOND presents the special exhibition, SEEDS, featuring photography by John Atchley, Peter J. Bamgartner, Peggy Braun, Denise B. Chandler, John Clarke, Jenna Gazaille, Martin Greene, Eric Korenman, Yvette Lucas, Cassandra Sohn and Kevin Sprague. On view May 19–July 9 (with a reception on Saturday, June 17, from 4–7 p.m.), SEEDS celebrates the cycle of life. All plants originate from seeds. Like the Tree of Life in various religions, seeds symbolize strength, stability and being rooted. In a figurative sense, the seed of something is the beginning of an idea, feeling or process. This can be positive (seeds of hope, seeds of happiness) or negative (seeds of jealousy, seeds of distrust). In literal or scientific terms, the seed sprouts the tree, the tree births the flower, the
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flowers bear the fruit and the fruit buries the seed. In addition to exhibitions, Sohn Fine Art also offers lectures and workshops. The Master Artist Series Program brings world-class photographers in the Berkshires every year, and summer 2017 will host Greg Gorman, a master photographer noted most for his celebrity portraits and nudes. For information on photography workshops during the summer, visit the gallery website. One look at the building that houses the St. Francis Gallery in Lee, a short skip south from Lenox, suggests some insight into its unique character. Located in a former Catholic Church of St. Francis, the gallery has no direct religious connections, yet honors spiritual inspiration with its blend of fostering art and
giving. As gallery founder Philip Pryjma explains, “The gallery blends a dedication to highlight the imaginative and creative forces within our local community along with contributing to projects that feed and nourish creativity in the villages of rural Kenya, through the nonprofit foundation, Sawa Sawa.” With an emphasis on education and training, the foundation supports health care, agriculture, and education, including children’s art. Artwork made by the children—such as colorful painted mobiles made from pieces of discarded tin roofing—are displayed and sold in the gallery, with profits cycled back into the community, to purchase more roofing for more families. In May, an exhibition highlights work done by children in Kenya and includes other artists who have demonstrated a commitment to the goals of the Foundation. The exhibition in June and July focuses on artists living in the Berkshires area. The artworks include a broad spectrum of sculpture, painting and collage, and as Pryjma explains, are chosen and installed in a way that highlights the gallery itself with a spiritual or emotional connection. Summer festivals and fairs also find a welcome home in the Berkshires, with a trifecta of dance, music and art. Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, in Becket, MA, kicks off its 85th Anniversary Season on June 21 with powerhouse company Miami City Ballet and runs through August 27 with a strong line-up of diverse companies from across the nation and around the globe. Highlights of the season include the Pillow-exclusive engagement TIRELESS: A Tap Dance Experience Curated by Michelle Dorrance; a new site-specific work by the world-renowned Pilobolus, commissioned for the Pillow’s iconic outdoor stage; the world premiere of The Principles of Uncertainty, a collaboration between modern dance artist John Heginbotham and acclaimed author and illustrator Maira Kalman; the U.S. debut of Israeli dance company Roy Assaf Dance; and rare U.S. appearances by Compagnie Marie Chouinard of Canada and Compañía Irene Rodríguez of Cuba. Ticketed performances are only part of the summer long Festival—Jacob’s Pillow offers more than 200 free performances, talks and tours, exhibits, community events, classes, celebrations and more. Visitors can also explore the National Historic Landmark grounds, visit The School at Jacob’s Pillow, and
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BERKSHIRES & BEYOND picnic or dine on-site. Great Barrington offers festivals focused on early music and fine crafts. For more than a decade, the Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) has followed its triumphant biennial Festivals in Boston with a weekend of performances in the Berkshires at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington. The GRAMMY–winning BEMF Chamber Opera Series returns on June 24 and 25 with a double bill of Neapolitan comic opera— Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona and Livietta e Tracollo. Humor and love abound in these delightfully witty masterpieces led by musical directors Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs and stage director Gilbert Blin. Originally written as interludes performed between acts
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of tragic operas, these comedies enchanted audiences with sidesplitting comedy and engaging romance. La Serva Padrona has remained popular at major opera houses and tells the tale of a cunning maid who conspires to win the heart of her testy employer. Though less well known, Liviette e Tracollo is a true masterpiece of musical comedy as a duplicitous con artist meets his match in a peasant woman plotting his comeuppance. Both operas come alive in a semi-staged production with colorful costumes, an outstanding cast, a troupe of Baroque dancers, and a period-inspired staging The Boston Globe hailed for its “zest and earthy opulence.” Great Barrington also hosts a delightful festival of visual arts and crafts, with the
SUMMER ART EVENTS
Ski Butternut • Rt 23
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AUGUST 1 7- 20 NEW | 125 ARTISTS Eastover Estate & Retreat
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Visit our gallery in Stockbridge
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Great Barrington, MA JULY 1 - 3 16th YEAR | 200 ARTISTS
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Berkshire Arts Festival, at Ski Butternut from July 1–3. Displaying museum-quality crafts including ceramics, jewelry and wearable arts, plus fine art such as paintings and sculpture, the festival showcases artists across the United States and Canada. But it’s also set up for fun and informality, with puppet shows and do-it-yourself demonstrations at the potter’s wheel. Founders and jurors, Richard and Joanna Rothbard, have launched and produced art fairs and craft shows around the country for more than 30 years. Emphasizing that the Berkshire Arts Festival is a highly selective, juried show, Richard explains, “I look for exquisite work and fresh ideas. And I look for surprises. Who wouldn’t? But it all has to be very high quality.” While the Berkshire Arts
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glass painting sculpture ceramics mixed media photography jewelry wood • fiber metal • leather furniture • fashion
An American Craftsman 36 Main St. (near Red Lion Inn) Stockbridge, MA | 413.298.0175 John Baun
SHOP ONLINE
AnAmericanCraftsman.com
May/June 2017
Art New England 58
BERKSHIRES & BEYOND Festival is now enjoying its 16th year, this summer the Rothbards also bring a new festival to the region, with the Berkshire Arts & Culture Festival, at Eastover Retreat in Lenox, from August 17–20. The August festival adds a new emphasis on lectures, demonstrations and workshops, with full schedule and ticket sales available online after mid-May. Also in Great Barrington, Lauren Clark Fine Art has settled into a new location, after first opening in the area in 2006. The gallery features fine art and contemporary craft by regional and internationally recognized artists in all media, but many are local, which allows gallery owner Lauren Clark to develop a web of personal relationships, forming a community. For Clark, the gallery itself is a work of art, and always a work in progress. “One might think it is more static than it really is, but everything is always changing,” she explains. “Everything from bringing in fresh flowers, periodically changing the wall colors, reconfiguring the floor plan of furniture and sculpture to hanging new shows, taking on new artists, and replacing art that is sold with something new.” The new location provides outdoor space for sculpture and other events, which include inviting performance artists to do their thing (either inside or outside). In addition, a related framing business, called Framing on the Edge as of January 2017, now operates side by side with the gallery. On May 27, Lauren Clark Fine Art hosts its annual Season Opener, featuring outdoor sculpture and new works by gallery artists, new and old. In Pittsfield, the region’s most urban center, approximately mid-way along Massachusetts’s north-south spine of the Berkshires, the Berkshire Museum integrates science, history and the arts in dynamic educational and engaging programs and exhibitions for visitors of all ages. Explore the Aquarium, Feigenbaum Hall of Innovation, LAB 102, and more, and check out the special exhibitions. GUITAR: The Instrument That Rocked the World opens May 20. Strummed or picked, acoustic or electric, the guitar is the most popular instrument in the world. The exhibit covers the science, sound and cultural impact of the guitar in a family friendly installation that contains more than 70 instruments, from the rare and antique to the popular and innovative, as well as performance videos, audio stations, hands-on interactives, models,
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touchscreens and photographs. Play the world’s largest guitar, 43.5 feet long, 16 feet wide, and certified by Guinness World Records! Also in the Berkshire Museum, explore the Curiosity Incubator, which offers an engaging, immersive and innovative experience of what makes us human and what connects us, from our shared languages and stories of arrival and immigration to cultural and ethnic traditions. An entire second-floor gallery has been transformed into this ongoing exhibition, with vivid full-wall graphics, touch screens, virtual-reality headsets, video monitors, a photo booth and fresh ways to view objects from the Museum’s collection. The Greylock Gallery Fine Art, nestled to the north in Williamstown, showcases traditional and contemporary art from emerg-
ing and established artists. Director Rachele Dario is a Berkshire native, who returned to the region after living for many years across the United States and in Italy. The gallery represents 17 artists, yet each month focuses a special exhibition on one. In May, John MacDonald displays landscape paintings that include views of the mountains, farms, forests and fields around Williamstown, in all seasons, such as Last Glimmer on Greylock, Berkshire Summer and Snowstorm on Oblong Road. He also invented “digital woodcuts” (with similar landscape imagery) that adapt traditional woodcut methods by starting with scanned sketches or tonal studies in black and white, and then building up the image in as many as 20 colored layers, using Photoshop. Tracy
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Kenneth Young, Rain Number 4, 2015, oil on canvas, 24 x 18". Photo: K. Young. Courtesy of Neumann Fine Art.
Helgeson, featured in June, moved to upstate New York in 2003, and her work reveals the inspiration of Cooperstown, NY’s rural scenes and farm structures. She pares down compositions to structural essentials, and then introduces visual depth and vibrant light through under painting, glazing and color contrast. “I strive for simplicity in my work, in color, form, composition, and subject matter,” Helgeson says in her artist statement. “However, complexities inevitably find their way in via tex-
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ture, handwritten elements, and small bits of painted details.” The landscape that inspires Helgeson extends beyond Massachusetts into New York State, where the Fenimore Art Museum is situated, in Cooperstown. The Fenimore features two special exhibitions this season: The Art of Figure Skating though the Ages: The Dick Button Collection. You may recall Dick Button’s colorful skating commentary on TV; if your memory stretches longer, you may
remember him as the champion figure skater that first landed the double axel and the triple loop. And, if you are a true aficionado, you know he invented the flying camel spin. And he is also an art collector. Button’s collection includes a full range of media and suggests the appeal of ice skating in different cultures and eras, from 17th century Dutch paintings to 20th century sculpture. Along with fine art depicting skating, the collection includes costumes, advertising art, antique skates and photographs. Button will appear, in person, throughout the summer, and special programming is scheduled for July 15. Opening on May 27, Andrew Wyeth at 100: A Family Remembrance is curated by the artist’s granddaughter, Victoria Wyeth, and includes two popular works—Master Bedroom and The Revenant. Along with Andrew Wyeth paintings from public and private collections, objects from Ms. Wyeth’s personal collection, many not previously exhibited, are displayed, such as Andrew Wyeth’s sketches, studies, paintings, artifacts and ephemera, as well as her own photographs of her grandfather. Public programs will feature appearances by Victoria Wyeth. The Fenimore’s permanent collections, housed in an elegant 1930s-era neo-Georgian mansion, integrate history and art history. The American Indian Wing houses the spectacular collection of Eugene and Clare Thaw, with almost 850 objects displaying the artistry of American Indian art. The oldest piece in the extensive American Folk Art collection, a seven-foot-long panel on which Hudson River Valley painter John Heaton depicted the Martin Van Bergen farmstead in 1733, stands among the first landscapes ever painted in this country. Hudson River School painters are well represented among the American Fine Art, with Thomas Cole’s Last of the Mohicans and Asher B. Durand’s Hudson River Looking Toward the Catskills. Like the Chesterwood estate, far to the south in Stockbridge, MA, the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, NY, serves as a symbolic bookend of the Berkshires arts scene, combining the rich history of the region with varied possibilities of visual art from fine art to folk art and crafts, and from past eras right up to the present day. —Laura Holland
May/June 2017
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