The FreshGrass Music Festival is an annual event at Mass MoCA. This year it will take place … [+]
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Saturday, January 25 is Community Day at MASS MoCA, which means free admission for all, all day long. There will be pop-up performances, a Sol LeWitt photo booth and art projects for the entire family happening throughout the museum. At day’s end, you can dance along to M.A.K.U. Soundsystem’s mash of Colombian folklore, psychedelic rock, and Caribbean grooves in Club B10 at 8pm.
Until the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art opened in an abandoned factory complex 20 years ago, North Adams was, like many rustbelt cities, decaying and full of unemployed residents. The factory buildings, which cover 16 acres, began to grow in the 18th century and, from 1942 to 1985, housed Sprague Electric. The company employed 4,000 people and, when it closed its operations in this western Massachusetts town, plunged the area into economic depression.
In 1986, just a year after Sprague’s closing, the business and political leaders of North Adams were seeking ways to creatively re-use the vast Sprague complex. The staff of the Williams College Museum of Art, led by its director, Thomas Krens—who would later become Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum—was seeking economic space to exhibit large works of contemporary art that would not fit in conventional museum galleries. When North Adams Mayor John Barrett III suggested the complex as a possible exhibition site, the idea of creating a contemporary arts center in North Adams began to take shape.
Joseph C. Thompson, Krens’ colleague at the Williams College Museum of Art, was named founding director of MASS MoCA and spearheaded the project’s launch after Krens went to the Guggenheim in 1988, shortly after the Massachusetts legislature voted its support for the project. Subsequent economic upheaval in Massachusetts threatened the project, but broad-based support from the community and the private sector, which pledged more than $8 million in matching funds, eventually won the day.
Important architects contributed to the master plan, including Frank Gehry, Robert Venturi and David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. In late 1999 MASS MoCA opened its doors as a center that would present both changing exhibitions and performing arts events, and nurture the creation of new works that chart fresh creative territory.
Here for 35 years is the largest collection of Sol LeWitt wall art. Through 2020 and, perhaps beyond, are several virtual reality experiences created by Laurie Anderson. An evocative and personal exhibit by famed singer-songwriter Annie Lennox is on display until February 2; there are also exhibits by Louise Bourgeois, James Turrell, Jenny Holzer and Ledelle Moe, among many others. Liz Phair will perform on May 16.
MASS MoCA has become a destination for fans of contemporary art and of cutting-edge performances. Although the museum does not employ anywhere near the thousands of workers of the industrial days, its ripple effects are notable in area restaurants, lodging, shops and attendant businesses. North Adams has come back to life.