From Electronics Factory to Creative Factory This is MASS MoCA..Your Destination Vacation

by Rona Mann

MASS MoCA. Kind of looks like a code or something out of this world.

Well in truth, it is an acronym for Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, and most definitely, it is without a doubt, out of this world!

Speak with Jenny Wright, Director of Strategic Communication and Advancements and you’ll get a very simple, but very understated sound bite. “MASS MoCA is much more than a mu seum.” That’s kind of like saying Everest is much more than a mountain.

“By definition, a museum is a building that holds art,” Wright continues, “but here we col laborate with other artists.” Yet another understatement indeed, for “here” is a 16-acre campus – larger than many colleges and uni versities - with 26 separate buildings and some 250,000 square feet of total gallery space throughout 7 of those buildings! This is not a mere museum as you might know it, this is a small city unto itself!

A weekend trip is not a bad idea at all because MASS MoCA is part of the landscape of one of the nicest cities in the northern Berkshires, that of North Adams. Situated nearly at the beginning of the old Mohawk Trail, a 6 9-mile adventure unto itself which heads east toward Boston, in a n area brimming over with history to be explored, MASS MoCA is the largest contemporary mu seum of visual and performing art in the United States today and likely to remain so!

Director Jenny Wright

MASS MoCA cannot be visited in one day. You do not merely “drop” by for a few hours, admire the installations, and leave. “It is a destination,” affirms Wright. “Many people when they get to know us realize it is a weekend trip. You cannot possibly see it all in one day.”

Once when North Adams was a company town, the people who were employed by Sprague Electric, some 4000 in number, lived and worked at the factory. In some ways, noth ing has changed. “Now it is a factory of creativity,” Jenny begins...and how do you begin when there is so much here? She speaks of the Assets for Artists program wherein artists working in every genre from performance art to painting and sculpture come in residence to the museum and live and work at MASS MoCA with their efforts culminating in performance of some type. “It’s not just displayed here,” Wright says, “It gets made here.”

This 24-year-old multi-dimensional treasure which is underwritten by memberships, foundation grants, individual donors, and state and fed eral grants is greatly powered by philanthropy, for when people not only visit, view, walk about, and return to MASS MoCA they realize there is little like it anywhere else, and therefore, what is being done here must be perpetuated.

Wright allows that people come for different reasons, some to witness the sheer beauty and scope of both long-term and rotating ex hibitions, others for the history of the place, and especially for the architecture that surrounds it. “You don’t need a Ph.D. in Art History to appreciate and experience it.”

Perhaps you enjoy daredevil experiences and rollercoasters. Well, they’ve got one at MASS MoCA, and it’s not on the grounds, it’s a work ing exhibition by EJ Hill called Brake Run Helix and is on view through January of 2024, and yes, you can ride it! This massive installation was built inside the building to scale and is the artist’s own “ode to joy,” derived from the joy he feels observing public monuments.

Do not miss the Ceramics in the Expanded Field, a ceramic sculpture two stories high, conceived and created in segments by eight individual artists and assembled onto a skeleton right within the exhibition hall. Jenny Wright says that perhaps the most interesting thing about this particular installation is the process itself.

A true highlight for visitors to MASS MoCA is Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawing Retrospective, 105 large-scale wall drawings spanning an enviable career from 1969 to 2007. Occupying nearly an acre of walls built to LeWitt’s own specifications, the 27,000 square foot structure envelops nearly three stories of what is known on campus as Building #7. We do not have enough space to even begin to scratch the surface of what’s inside all these buildings and on all these walls. The curators of MASS MoCA work constantly and tirelessly for years building relationships with new artists before inviting them and bringing them to this hallowed ground to work and create.

Other current exhibitions include Deep Water, third in a series from a private collection depicting Black musicians of note from the 150s to the 60s; Choreopolitics, a dance statement created by Brendan Fernan des and nibia pastrana santiago who use dance to resist, heal, and connect; Jarvis Rockwell is represented with a massive collection of toys and figurines who integrate and “organize” themselves on glass panels high above those who view this installation.

This land has always been a “place for making,” as Jenny Wright de scribes. A couple of hundred years ago there were factories making goods, now some of the original staircases and paint on the walls from all those years ago still exist. The “ghosts” that have been rumored to inhabit the old structures must enjoy how their buildings have once again come to life in a vibrant, pulsating, happy campus filled at all times with people making not electronics, but photography, music, theatre, sculpture, dance and every conceivable form of art. The work continues but does so in a different way. There is life here in these old buildings with stories deep in their walls and new stories written in the wind every day, waiting patiently to be told. There is no stuffiness here. There is little in common with other museums, for this is not a place of one-dimensional art, there is movement here, there is life.

Those who live in the Capital region area will delight in knowing that MASS MoCA is not far. It’s only a 47-mile drive from Albany and 55 miles from Saratoga, but don’t think of it as a day trip or you will be cheating yourself. You cannot treat MASS MoCA like a “regular museum” because there’s nothing “regular” about it. This is a true destination, an experience rather than a place to visit, and you should approach it as such. North Adams offers a host of lodging and dining choices, so you really can make it a mini-vacation this winter without having to go far. MASS MoCA is indeed a place for making, its buildings have been thus for several hundred years. People still live here in residence making the beautiful, the unusual, the controversial, and that which must be experienced.

So, time to plan to start your journey to this place of history, of liveli ness, of wonder. MASS MoCA is a different experience for everyone who visits, everyone who comes back again and again. And yes, it’s a destination, a journey, and ultimately an experience all in one.

Enjoy yours.

For more information on MASS MoCA, exhibitions, hour, and direc tions visit: www.massmoca.org