North Adams - Inopportune, one of the most stunning and popular exhibits ever to inhabit MASS MoCA’s vast Building 5 Gallery, will soon come to an end. October 30 is the last day to see the nine white cars, suspended from the ceiling of the football-field-sized space as though they were one single car caught in a stop motion photograph—complete with pulsating light show that mimics an explosion.
The exhibit also includes nine — an important digit in Chinese numerology — tigers, each disturbingly pierced with dozens of arrows so convincing that patrons often ask if the tigers are real. (They’re not.) Cai Guo-Qiang, the artist for these works along with author Nicolas Mirzoeff will converse with the public on Thursday, October 27, at 7:30 P.M. in a talk titled In Conversation with Cai Guo Qiang: Artistic Meditations on a World Unsettled
This panel will be moderated by Ed Epping, an artist and professor at Williams College who has sent a simple email postcard with straightforward facts about the war in Iraq to thousands of people every day since the war began. Cai will discuss his project and his thoughts on the visual iconography of violence and heroism. Nicolas Mirzoeff is a professor of art and art professions at The Steinhardt School of Education at New York University and an expert on the visual culture of violence. Mirzoeff ‘s most recent book, Watching Babylon: Global Visual Culture and the War in Iraq, takes the issue of visual literacy into the political arena, teaching readers how to interpret media images.
Winner of one of the most important prizes in contemporary art, the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale as well as the CalArts/ Alpert Award in the Arts, Cai has also been selected as a finalist for the Hugo Boss Prize. Cai’s recent major projects include Bon Voyage: 10,000 Collectibles from the Airport at the Sao Paulo Biennal (2004); Cai Guo-Qiang: Traveler, a two-part exhibition at the Hirschhorn Museum and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington D.C. (2004); and Light Cycle: Explosion Project for Central Park (2003); as well as MoMA’s Transient Rainbow (2002). Cai also curated an exhibition titled BMoCA: Bunker Museum of Contemporary Art in 2004 which focused on turning military structures into spaces for art and culture.
Born in China in 1957 Cai Guo-Qiang was trained in stage design at the Shanghai Drama Institute. While living in Japan from 1986 to 1995, Cai first presented his explorations of the properties of gunpowder in his drawings, an inquiry that eventually led to his experimentation with explosives on a massive scale. He quickly achieved international prominence during his tenure in Japan, and his work was shown widely around the world. His approach draws on a wide variety of symbols, narratives, traditions and materials such as feng shui, Chinese medicine, dragons, roller coasters, and vending machines.
Major support for MASS MoCA's series of programs on contemporary Chinese artists has been provided by the W.L.S. Spencer Foundation. Additional support has been provided by the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation for Art, the Nimoy Foundation, Holly Angell Hardman and the Appelbaum-Kahn Foundation.
This talk is supported in part by gifts from the W.L.S. Spencer Foundation, Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, The Evelyn Stefanson Nef Foundation and Evelyn S. Nef. The galleries will be open until 7 P.M. to give lecture attendees a last chance to see the exhibition before the talk. Tickets for In Conversation with Cai Quo-Qiang are $6 for adults and free for students. Space is limited so reservations are required. They can be made through the MASS MoCA Box Office located off Marshall Street in North Adams from 11 A.M. until 5 P.M. (closed Tuesdays). Tickets can also be charged by phone by calling 413.662.2111 during Box Office hours or purchased online at www.massmoca.org .
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Former Harry's Supermarket Under Construction for Restaurant
Late last month, the Conservation Commission greenlit some tree pruning on the property. New windows and a new door can be seen in the front of the building.
"It's a substantial renovation that's currently underway here," Brent White of White Engineering said, speaking on behalf of the applicant and owner, Huajie Zhu.
A fire gutted the longtime Wahconah Street supermarket in 2023, and the following year, Zhu purchased the property for $460,000 two years ago to build a restaurant with hibachi in the existing footprint of the more than 100-year-old building.
White explained that the project has been ongoing for over a year, and the Community Development Board granted the property a waiver to reduce the minimum required number of parking spaces so that additional spaces aren't needed.
He noted that, looking at the site plan, there is very little room to do so. A mirror will be installed near the sharp turn on Bel Air Avenue to alleviate traffic concerns.
Pruning will be done on trees in the southeast corner of the existing paved parking lot, as a number of branches are hanging over. The new owners also intend to patch, sealcoat, and re-stripe the parking lot.
A fire tore through the building less than an hour after the supermarket closed for the day three years ago. An automatic sprinkler system is required for the new use.
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Jason Codey struck out 13, walked two and allowed just an infield single as the Generals earned a 7-1 win over Wahconah to claim their third straight regional title. click for more
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