Mass MoCA Summer Filled With Music, Photography ... and 'Top Gun'
 Joseph Thompson, director of Mass MoCA, talks about the art of photography that will be a big part of the upcoming summer season. He is standing in front of a photo by Clifford Ross taken of Mount Sopris near Aspen, Colo. Ross invented and patented his so-called R1 camera, using it to create some of the highest-resolution single-shot landscape photographs ever produced. |
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — It's no secret that Wilco is bringing its Solid Sound Festival back to Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art this summer.
But in a packed summer season announced Wednesday morning, Wilco is being bookended by other high-quality musical performances, including Brooklyn-country stars The Lone Bellow kicking off the summer on Memorial Day Weekend and FreshGrass, MoCA's annual festival of bluegrass and roots music, wrapping up the summer shortly after Labor Day.
In between all that live music, the galleries will be filled with exhibits that offer traditional and modern takes on the art of photography, and the museum's Kidspace family gallery is kicking off a four-year-long project aimed at helping today's kids learn the art of problem-solving.
In discussing the Kidspace exhibit at the beginning of Wednesday's announcement in Mass MoCA's Club B10 space, Director of Education Laura Thompson said the four-year project, dubbed "Walk In My Shoes," is starting this summer with the theme of empathy. Jamie Diamond, Jesse Fleming and Aaron Johnson have works in the show.
"I'm really excited about this plan," Thompson said.
In addition to the three artists, Thompson said there will be related programming, including a visit from R.J. Palacio, the author of "Wonder," about a boy born with a facial deformity who's the new kid in fifth grade.
"It will be a full year devoted to this," she said.
Much of the visual arts scene will be devoted to photography, according to Director Joseph Thompson.
"There's a lot of photography at Mass MoCA, spanning a full spectrum," he said, introducing an upcoming exhibit by Clifford Ross, "Landscape Seen & Imagined," which takes place throughout two buildings, six galleries, and an exterior performing arts courtyard. The exhibit will include Ross' hyper-detailed photographs of hurricane waves and mountains and a new "invisible art" project featuring animated virtual elements only accessible by means of the viewer's smartphone or tablet.
That kind of interactive opportunity is exciting to Thompson.
"Things happen. Three-D images come tumbling out of your phone," he said. "It's an interesting feature."
Also in the photography genre is a solo exhibition from Liz Deschenes, which whose works make visible the materials, properties and chemical processes of photography. In conjunction with her solo exhibition, Deschenes chose six artists for participation in a concurrent group exhibit, "Artists' Choice: An Expanded Field of Photography." The work of Dana Hoey, Craig Kalpakjian, Miranda Lichtenstein, Josh Tonsfeldt, Sara VanDerBeek and Randy West is featured.
"All these people Liz has chosen because they are making an impact in the world of photography," said Hannah Pivo, a visual arts intern at Mass MoCA working with curator Susan Cross.
On the big screen, Mass MoCA will host a screening of "James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket," an emotional portrait of the writer and Civil Rights activist. This film will kick off the Berkshire County-wide Lift Ev'ry Voice festival, celebrates the diverse traditions of African-American community, arts and culture, history and heritage found within Berkshire County, on June 19. A couple weeks later, on July 3, the "Movies at the Airport" film series held in the hangar of the Harriman and West Airport will feature "Top Gun," which brought cheers from the crowd on Wednesday.
"It's Tom Cruise at its finest," said Susan Killam, Mass MoCA's managing director for the Performing Arts and Film.
Killam, in expressing her excitement for Solid Sound and Fresh Grass, also gave props to the annual Bang on a Can festival coming to MoCA for the 14th year in July, as well as the Grammy-winning Roomful of Teeth, which regularly summers at the museum and will be returning on Aug. 28 to perform stunning vocal arrangements.
In true Mass MoCA fashion, Killam also expressed excitement over a "crossover" event, in which the music of Brooklyn-based band Oneida will perform live amid the enveloping 12-screen video installation of the aforementioned Clifford Ross in Courtyard D.
"It's one of those only-at-Mass-MoCA experiences," she said. "Seeing is believing."
Tags: art installation, mass moca, music, music festival,
