Visual Art

visual arts museums

In the Light of a Shadow, Glenn Kaino at MASS MoCA.

Speaking of going outside, the Berkshires is full of spectacular outdoor art, and we give you the full rundown in “Art in Public Places” on page 50 of this magazine. In the meantime, there’s still lots of art indoors well worth your while.

MASS MoCA is one of the world’s liveliest centers for making and enjoying today’s most evocative art. Also, one of the largest in terms simply of floor and wall space. With vast galleries and a stunning collection of indoor and outdoor performing arts venues, MASS MoCA is able to embrace all forms of art: music, sculpture, dance, film, painting, photography, theater, and new, boundary-crossing works of art that defy easy classification. Much of the work shown in its light-filled spaces and late 19th-century courtyards is made there during extended residencies that bring hundreds of the world’s most brilliant and innovative artists to North Adams all year round. Works by the wildly inventive artist James Turrell are now on view at MASS MoCA both outside and in. Outside, Turrell’s Skyscape comes on view starting May 29. This repurposed concrete water tank, measuring 40 feet wide by 40 feet high, is a naked-eye observatory framing, through an observation hole in its ceiling, a small piece of sky as a canvas with infinite depth. Skyscape compliments Into the Light inside the museum, a long-term retrospective of Turrell’s work that currently includes nine light installations. And there’s still more Turrell: his collaboration with Irish potter Nicholas Mousse has produced a curious line of ceramic tableware that absorbs light rather than refracting it. Beginning May 30, MASS MoCA will open an exhibition of this Lapsed Quaker Ware in a modern setting; at the same time, Hancock Shaker Village will display the collection in an historic setting.

Glenn Kaino’s In the Light of a Shadow currently spans MASS MoCA’s signature football-field-sized Building 5 gallery with an immersive installation exploring the power of collective action, and its Kidspace gallery, which is free of charge, is hosting work by Wendy Red Star.

La Dormeuse (The sleeping woman), Claude Lalanne at The Clark.

On June 12, Norman Rockwell Museum will debut the gallery exhibition Enchanted: A History of Fantasy Illustration, with a complimentary juried outdoor sculpture exhibit Land of Enchantment opening July 10. Enchanted focuses on fantasy archetypes from the Middle Ages to today, telling myths, fairy tales, and fables through paintings, etchings, drawings, and digital art. Symposiums, meet-the-artist events, and outdoor workshops are scheduled throughout the exhibits’ runs. The title of Robert Frost: “At Present in Vermont” at the Bennington Museum through November 7 comes from a line in his poem called “New Hampshire” which he wrote while living in Vermont. The exhibition is a must for anyone who loves Frost’s poems and admires his quintessential Yankee spirit. If you, too, can make yourself “present” in southern Vermont, the museum invites you to explore Frost’s relationship with the landscapes and people of that region. Love, Marriage, and Divorce, at the museum through December 31, explores the highs and lows of love and heartache, from Victorian wedding gowns to scandalous talks of sexual harassment. Askwa n’daoldibna iodali: We Are Still Here, through December 31, celebrates the staying power of Bennington’s Indigenous people who have survived colonization, wars, disease, stolen lands and forced sterilization yet retain their cultural traditions and continue to make art inspired by their history and traditions. And, don’t end your visit without seeing the works of “Grandma” Moses; Bennington Museum holds the largest public collection in the world of paintings by this great 20th-century folk artist. The major indoor exhibition at The Clark Art Institute this summer is Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne: Nature Transformed (to October 31). It has been more than forty years since an American art museum has shown the work of these married sculptors who worked and exhibited together, often under the joint name “Les Lalanne,” but seldom collaborated on objects. What they shared, though, especially was an abiding interest in nature; the artists drew inspiration from flora and fauna and transformed natural forms into objets strange and new. This exhibition explores their innovative sculpture, furniture, flatware, and jewelry that have long delighted international audiences and collectors.

Nikolai Astrup:Visions of Norway, also at The Clark (June 19 – September 19), is the first North American exhibition of paintings and prints by one of Norway’s most important artists who is, unfortunately, largely unknown outside of his homeland. The exhibition features more than 85 works from this brilliant painter, printmaker, and horticulturalist. And, beginning July 17, The Clark will exhibit its own extensive collection of works by famous printmaker Albrecht Durer and his imitators, copyists, and interpreters in Dürer & After, running through October 3.

Chesterwood in Stockbridge is the living embodiment of artistic creativity both indoors and out. At the former summer home, studio and gardens of America’s foremost 20th century public sculptor, Daniel Chester French, a visitor can feel the spirit and observe the process of creativity. French’s public sculpture work can be seen throughout the United States and even abroad, but he is best known for Minute Man, 1874 (Concord, Mass.) and the seated figure of Abraham Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial, 1922 (Washington, D.C.). Hundreds of his preliminary models and final works in bronze and marble are on view in the Studio, the Barn Gallery and a new study gallery. French planned and built Chesterwood to be a paradise for himself and his family. To this day, it allows the visitor to feel like a participant in the process of making art.

At the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, art has merged with natural science to produce Animals of the World in Miniature where fourteen miniature scenes depict animals and plants in their native habitats across the Earth. Downstairs, below the lobby level, guests can find themselves swimming between the dark, deep blue walls of the Aquarium face to face with many species of fish, insects, reptiles, amphibians, and more, swimming inside the Aquarium’s more than 35 tanks. Clearly, its own unique form of visual art.