Next DownStreet Art Set for July 31
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NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts’ Berkshire Cultural Resource Cente will host the next DownStreet Art on Thursday, July 31, from 3 to 9 p.m. with the opening of nine new exhibitions, open studios by local artists, pop-up happenings and community events throughout Downtown North Adams.
“We are looking at another great evening of music, performances – and most important of all – art and artists,” said Jonathan Secor, BCRC director. “Be sure to get down to DownStreet for this very special DownStreet Art Thursday.”
A highlight of the evening will be the celebration of the most recent mural in the Mural Project, a new work by Washington-based artist Corwin Levi, who spent the last month creating an intricate set of patterns and connections in multiple shades of black, white and grey on the opposite side of Alaa Awad’s “Justice,” on Veteran’s Memorial Bridge (Route 2 Overpass). The celebration for this new mural will take place at 6:15 p.m.
A lawyer-turned-visual-artist, Levi works in video, sculpture and painting. After receiving his JD from Virginia University and working as a litigator, he is a full-time visual artist working out of Washington D.C.
Levi’s mural “Circumnavigate Through,” faces the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA). According to Levi, “The mural is going to look like the space holding the connective tissue of all our creative
energy and also, to borrow a phrase, an infinite sonorous silence.”
Through his participation in the DownStreet Art Mural Project, Levi fully embraced the artistic energy found throughout North Adams.
“From what I have seen in my brief time here, the North Adams art community is a vibrant, inclusive space, with a wonderful group of people making exciting things happen,” Levi said. “I have seen murals that provide windows into other worlds, heard experimental music while looking at emerging art, and have been painting the whole time with Mass MoCA in my peripheral vision.”
Other highlights of the July 31 event will include exhibition openings at all of the DownStreet Art galleries, including MCLA Gallery 51, PRESS Gallery, NAACO, CONcourse Gallery, DIScourse Gallery, Gallery 107, The Berkshire Eagle Gallery, Independent Art Projects and the galleries at Mountain One and Adams Community Banks.
The DownStreet Art Trolley will run on an art loop, 6-9 p.m., beginning at Mass MoCA, where Independent Art Projects will have its grand opening. The trolley, which will be free to ride, will stop at galleries along Main Street, the Rudd Art Museum, all DownStreet art murals, as well as a crosswalk painting effort and performances.
The streets will be alive with music and stilt walkers as Alex Torres and his Latin Sextet play a blend of Afro-Caribbean rhythms such as Salsa, Merengue, Cha-cha, Bomba, Plena and Latin Jazz, in front of Berkshire Bank on Main Street.
There will be musical performances by indie rock bands Kimono Dragons and Leap the Dips. And the Kids also will join DownStreet Art Thursday, playing their “unconscious existential indie glitter popsicle crisis music,” according to Secor.
Bang on a Can will be seen and heard throughout the evening, starting in the St. Anthony’s parking lot as part of the mural celebration, and then in concert at the Anselm Kiefer exhibit at Mass MoCA, followed by an after-hours session at the Chalet.
This year’s DownStreet Art season was funded in part by a $10,000 Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. DownStreet Art, a cultural and economic development program, was organized by the team from MCLA Gallery 51 and the Berkshire Cultural Resource Center.
