DownStreet Art Returns to North Adams
Join the celebration as we kick off DownStreet Art VI, with nine new exhibition openings, a roving video/light installation, curb-side performances, business specials, and dancing in the streets!
Below are the full details for this Thursday's DownStreet Art Kick-Off! Along with the events/exhibitions listed below, restaurants and businesses of North Adams will be remaining open late.
All events are free and family-friendly!
| 5pm- 9pm | Exhibition Openings |
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NAACO Gallery "Playing with Nature: The Paintings of Sharon Carson and Ceramics of Stephen Fabrico"
33 Main Street Sharon Carson will present a collection of new oil paintings which are based on the Berkshire landscape...focusing on the colors, rhythms and shapes found in nature, emphasizing personal creativity over realism. Stephen Fabrico complements Carson's paintings with an array of sculptural and functional ceramic work, incised with textural botanical motifs. |
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PRESS: Letterpress as a Public Art Project "imPRESS"
49 Main Street Click here for more information. June 20/July 21 - PRESS kicks off the 2012 season of DownStreet Art with imPRESS: an exhibit showing the work of MASS MoCA Teenspace artists exploring printmaking. Melanie Mowinski, assistant professor of visual art at MCLA and proprietress of PRESS, will be operating the Vandercook Universal III. The space is a gallery and a workshop in downtown North Adams. |
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Gallery 51 "Other Hudson Chapter Two"
51 Main Street Click here for more information. June 8/July 21 - Other Hudson Chapter II: Other Hudson Chapter Two is the second exhibit in a series showcasing work by artists from the NY Hudson Valley. The second Other Hudson exhibit will feature work by Kahn/Selesnik and Denis Herbert. Richard Selesnick and Nicholas Kahn have been collaborating as Kahn/Selesnick on a series of complex narrative photo-novellas and sculptural installations since 1988. Dennis Herbert has been making art assemblages from found materials for over 10 years. A self-trained artist, he spends his free time creating mysterious, dream-like boxes as well as free standing sculptures. |
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Gallery 53 Beehive Collective's "The True Cost of Coal"
53 Main Street For more information click here. June 20/July 21 - The Beehive Collective is an all-volunteer network of artists, educators, and activists who use compelling visuals to share complex stories crafted in collaboration with social movements. Public and participatory art is at the very core of what they do. Their large-format narrative graphics depict many facets of the struggles for social and ecological justice, but a theme that unites them all is the importance of place. The theme for the Gallery 53 exhibition is "The True Cost of Coal", which centers around the social and environmental impact of mountain top coal mining. |
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Branch Gallery "False Apex"
18 Holden Street Click here for more information. June 20/July 21 - works by Geoffrey Booras & David Kaufmann. Both Geoffrey Booras and David Kaufmann's research explores ideas and objects which represent a kind of false peak of technology's arc. Their work grapples with questions of technological relationships within a wide scope of time in an effort to reflect on the tools of our day and how their use defines our present situation. The objects they make pose questions about the long and short sightedness of these tools. Together David Kaufmann and Geoffrey Booras' works provide the public the opportunity to relate the artwork to North Adams and its own industrial arc as a living example of obsolescence and renewal. |
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The Transcript Gallery "Ramblings of a Mad Shutterbug: A collection of images exclusively from Northern Berkshire County"
85 Main Street Click here for more information.
Opening June 20th is Daniel Morgan's "Ramblings of a Mad Shutterbug: A collection of images exclusively from Northern Berkshire County” |
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Gallery 105 Jenny Kemp & Richard Harrington
105 Main Street Click here for more information. Richard Harrington's vision for this exhibition explores geometrical three dimensional installations rooted in his philosophy: "Each installation presents its own unique problems and solutions. Though this may seem simple minded, this has been the wisdom of the decades distilled into how and why this artwork will look the way it does. The consistent theme in my work has been a stereoptic correlation and dialogue between light, objects and their environment. I hope that this grouping can achieve these goals in addressing the unique characteristics of this space on Main Street.” |
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Gallery 107 CAfE: Community Art for Everyone
107 Main Street Art About Town specializes in creating opportunities for community involvement in public art-making. This summer they will introduce a community-based center for art-learning, exploration and growth. Each week in the gallery, a team of artists will promote art making by residents of all ages and visitors who would stretch the concept of what is art by utilizing impressions direct from the history of North Adams. Participant artists include: Bill Oberst, Vin Jensen, Dan Morgan, Christina King, Phil and Gail Sellers. |
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Adams Community Bank Gallery Lydia Thomson and Kim Colligan
31 Eagle Street Click here for more information.
Featuring local and regional artists exhibitions curated by Christina Stott. Lydia Thomson lives in Southern Vermont, and uses the fields and hills surrounding her home on Deer Ridge Farm in Townshend as her primary subject when painting landscapes.She also works with still life, abstract forms, and experiments with whatever subject matter or media becomes interesting- lately, pigeons and crows intrigues her. Although the work may take many different forms, it all is concerned with 'finding'. Kim Colligan began printmaking in the late 1980's at the University of New Hampshire. Inspired by her abstract expressionist mentor, Jules Olitski, Colligan's work involves creating a surface that becomes an environment. She begins each piece by thinking formally about color and shape and by laying down layers of color, modifying the form and shape with each layer. As each piece evolves she makes references to nature in some way, often very abstracted plant forms. Color and form become paramount to the success of her finished work.
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| 6pm-8pm | DownStreet Art Performances |
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One Way Out
Outside of Mohawk Theater Click here for more information. One Way Out is a local, North Adams-based rock and blues band. They will busking outside of the Mohawk Theater, near Gallery 107 and Gallery 105 on Main Street.
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dysFUNKcrew MCLA Break-dancing crew
Lift Ev'ry Voice Stage Kicking off the night is the Berkshires newest break dance crew, entirely made up of Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts Dance Company Alumni is dysFUNKcrew! This crew represents several styles of dance including ballet, jazz, modern, step dancing, breaking, and Hip Hop. The members have been dancing together for over five years in MCLA Dance Company and have continued to perform in various other shows after graduating. They are a fresh new upbeat crew just looking to share their talents and love for dance with like-minded people! |
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"The Meaning of the Fourth of July for the Negro" Reading Written by Fredrick Douglass
Lift Ev'ry Voice Stage Click here for more information. A communal reading of Frederick Douglass's speech, "The Meaning of the Fourth of July for the Negro". This influential communal reading is grounded on unity. The speech will be broken down into 45 small segments and read by various people of the community on stage. Before the Fourth of July was merely about fireworks and hot dogs, it was about reflecting on the state of our democracy. What's a better way to bring us all together as one than with a public reading on the Lift Ev'ry Voice stage during this festive event! |
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"Wandering Night House"
Driving Around Downtown North Adams Elaine Buckholtz & Floor vad de Velde - Presented in conjunction with the Art in The Streets Festival in North Adams, Wandering Night House has been created as a two-night roving performance. A portable light vehicle will amble along the streets and corridors of North Adams at a very slow pace, dousing street facades with subtle light projections. Viewers will be invited to meet at a pre-designated location at dusk to go on the journey. The performance will be featured during the DownStreet Art kickoff event on June 20th as well as the 21st for North Adams Late Night!
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| 8pm-10pm | Main Street Dance Party! |
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Nomadic Massive
Lift Ev'ry Voice Stage Click Here for more information. Messengers of universal understanding and social injustice, the nine members of Nomadic Massive have firmly established themselves as a group of premiere performers and skilled musicians in a genre that has evolved from its early days of two turntables and a microphone. These musical nomads represent an open-minded Hip-Hop that finds its inspiration in the traditions of the past; combining live instrumentation, samples, and an intelligent poetry of vocal styles that leaves no one indifferent. According to MTV "Nomadic Massive takes multiculturalism to the next level...creating truly global Hip-Hop." The Montreal Gazettes says that Nomadic Massive is Hip-Hop at its finest - a giddy, funky pass-the-mic throwdown, with smiles all around.” This multicultural super-group plans to bring its own brand of Hip-Hop to Main Street as the city shuts down vehicular traffic and gets ready for a soul shaking dance party celebration. |
READING
