In presenting 14 Stations, MASS MoCA will be venturing into the delicate area of religion, but artist Robert Wilson created the modern, often-abstract work for a traditional Catholic religious festival in Germany, where the work generated favorable interest.
14 Stations will open at the museum in North Adams on Sunday, Dec. 9. The work is a massive sculptural environment first created by the theater director/artist on the occasion of the year 2000 Passion Play. People of Oberammergau, Germany have presented the play every 10 years since 1634.
Jesus' path
The Way of the Cross is a Catholic devotion recapitulating the path of Jesus on the way to his crucifixion, a devotion with origins in the Middle Ages and one which is still practiced. Participants proceed along and stop at marked stations, where they meditate on some aspect of the passion of Christ. Some of the stations are drawn from the Biblical account of the crucifixion; others are inferred by tradition.
Fixed at 14 by Pope Clement XII (1730-1740), the stations are: 1). Jesus is condemned to death. 2). Jesus bears his cross. 3). Jesus falls the first time. 4). Jesus meets his mother. 5). Jesus is helped by Simon. 6). Veronica gives Jesus a cloth to wipe his brow. 7). Jesus falls a second time. 8). Jesus speaks to the weeping women. 9). Jesus falls a third time. 10). Jesus is stripped of his garments. 11). Jesus is nailed to the cross. 12). Jesus dies on the cross. 13). Jesus is taken down from the cross. 14). Jesus is placed in the tomb.
Light, sculpture & sound
Wilson has designed a massive Way of the Cross along which the 14 stations are presented in a series of light, sculpture, and sound environments. The work is now being installed in MoCA’s massive Gallery 5 for its first showing outside of Oberammergau. The first station is a pavilion-like room, not unlike a bunker, longer than it is wide. The main element is a round shaft, a sort of well in which a dark, swirling fluid can be seen. Words of strong premonition such as “condemned,†“hand,†“blood†can be heard.
The next 12 stations, arrayed on either side of a wooden walkway, are enclosed in little Shaker cottages or chapels.
“The stations of the cross take place as you walk down this boardwalk, which is created by kind of railroad ties,†said MASS MoCA Director Joseph Thompson, who is curating this exhibition. “And you stop along the way at various stations and look through windows. You can’t enter these chapels.â€
The stations are viewed through windows so narrow that only one person can look in at a time.
“They all have windows; you can sort of poke your head up to them, and within each of them is its own separate world, a light and sound installation with various kinds of references and imagery,†Thompson said.
At the opposite end of the walkway from station one, hundreds of feet away, is the 14th and final station. For this, Wilson has designed a teepee of 25-foot-tall saplings and thatch. A figure hangs upside-down within it.
The imagery bears little resemblance to that of traditional depictions of Jesus or the Way of the Cross. In station four, Jesus and his mother are two small white figures facing each other, a boulder with a light embedded within it is suspended over them. The women in stations six and eight are bonneted Shaker women. In station nine, Jesus falling under the cross for the third time, a naked man crouches on all fours beneath a falling Shaker table. In station 11, the nailing to the cross, a vertical glass column filled with pulsating red liquid pierces an empty bed.
“He was quite carefulâ€
In an interview in the program guide to the Oberammergau installation, Wilson tells the interviewer, a member of the Jesuit religious order, that, “On the one hand I try to respect the stations, but I didn’t want to become a slave to them. I’m trying to find my own way into them. You don’t have to do it all the Christian way. It is spiritualism, it deals with Christianity in another way.â€
“He was quite careful,†Thompson said of Wilson in creating his work. “Don’t forget that the commissioning agent is the city of Oberammergau, where they have this huge passion play ... [it’s] one of the most conservative regions for Catholicism in all of Europe.â€
“His use of images, sources, and references don’t always track one-to-one with ... traditional forms of Catholic iconography,†Thompson said. “Sometimes they do.â€
Station four, Jesus meeting his mother, does have two standing human forms face-to-face, Thompson said.
“At times the references are very literal,†Thompson said. “And other times they’re not.â€
In the case of suspended boulders in the work — in stations two, four, and 10 — they could represent the weight of the cross or the three falls of Christ.
“But on the other hand, there’s something ethereal about a flying boulder, a boulder that could literally lift up and fly away,†Thompson said.
The figure hanging upside-down in the large teepee in the final station — the entombment of Jesus — may be shocking to some. But an essay in the exhibition program by the Jesuit mentioned above notes both the tradition that St. Peter was crucified upside-down and that in great Christian religious artworks down through the centuries “artists have always turned death on its head.â€
Said Thompson of 14 Stations, “It’s more an analog of moods, it would seem to me, of the story. I think it’s infinitely interesting.
“And there are also layers of reference that go, I think, outside the traditional narrative, The Way of the Cross,†he said. “Certainly the use of Shaker architecture — which is another form of intense spirituality, but a completely different visual language, and one closer to Wilson’s own, very minimal, pared down, reserved.
“He finds great meaning in their furniture and their chairs, and the kind of rigor of their life, and the structure of their life,†he said. “And yet that’s so different from what we normally think of as the way the Stations of the Cross are represented, which is often quite baroque or rococo even.â€
“He’s squeezing on two ... powerful traditions in Christianity. We don’t think of them in the same breath, at all,†Thompson said of Shakerism and Catholicism. “Both rigorous form-giving religions, and he’s like squeezing them and modeling them together and sometimes against one another, sometimes with one another.â€
Wilson is known in his theatrical work for his powerful, evocative, and precise lighting design work and it is seen in 14 Stations. The work also contains a complex sound element.
“Many of them are everyday sounds, the sounds of a pencil dropping, which is an interesting image in the context of the Way of the Cross, because you think of the dropping of the cross itself,†Thompson said. “But in this case the wood hitting the floor is actually just a pencil, something that you hold in your hand.
“That’s a powerful aspect of this whole work. He takes images and ideas and makes them very much of our life, of our world, because the things that you’re hearing are things that you recognize,†he said. “The sound of breaking glass, for example. And sometimes voices.â€
Why bring it here?
Why did Thompson choose to bring this work to MASS MoCA?
One reason was that the physical gallery space MASS MoCA had available corresponded well to the dimensions of the work. The work attracted much attention when it first appeared, and he hopes that people will want to come see it. In many ways, Wilson is just the type of artist for which MASS MoCA is made.
“He’s difficult to pin down,†Thompson said. “And his works have a grand scale that fit well in our galleries.â€
“With respect to the content, it seemed to us interesting to exhibit a work that either indirectly or overtly, depending on one’s point of view, has rather profound religious content,†he said. “And it also seemed to us that for those who have knowledge and understanding and background, for those whom [the] Christian narrative is important, this would seem to be a work that would be of great interest.
“It also works, I think, for an audience that might have very little depth of knowledge of the central theme,†Thompson said. “It’s a powerfully dramatic visual installation with a very compelling soundtrack, lots to see.
“The imagery ultimately is rather abstract and can connect to all kinds of traditions. It had an openness and permeability that I thought for our audience could be interesting.â€
Given that North Adams has several Catholic churches, “it seemed like something there might be an interested audience for,†he said.
Misinterpretation possible?
“Any time you deal with politics, sex, or religion, you’re a wise museum director to ... give it some thought. So, concern? No. I think that any time you put religious or even potentially religious subject matter in the context of a museum — and particularly a museum of contemporary art — there’s the potential for controversy. There’s a potential for misunderstanding,†Thompson said. “I think those are overshadowed by the potential for profound understanding and true engagement and being reflexively optimistic and generous of people’s intentions I think it’s worth doing.â€
200 tons of art
14 Stations will be up for 11 months and will close in early November 2002. In Germany the work was outside, but it is being reassembled inside in the U.S.
“Where in Oberammergau they had grass, here at MASS MoCA, we’ll have gravel — 90 tons of gravel,†Thompson said. “The scale of the work his similar. Here it’s a little bit more compact.â€
“It’s by far the most complicated thing we’ve ever taken on. It will end up weighing close to 200 tons, requiring steel reinforcement in our basement.
“It’s a very complicated, multimedia installation,†Thompson said. “We’ve tapped a lot of resources in our community to try to figure out how to make it work, not the least of which is that it was built in Europe at European voltages and whatnot, so we’ve had to do a lot of transforming of electronic equipment.â€
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Berkshire County Homes Celebrating Holiday Cheer
By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
There's holiday cheer throughout the Berkshires this winter.
Many homeowners are showing their holiday spirit by decorating their houses. We asked for submissions so those in the community can check out these fanciful lights and decor when they're out.
We asked the homeowners questions on their decorations and why they like to light up their houses.
In Great Barrington, Matt Pevzner has decorated his house with many lights and even has a Facebook page dedicated to making sure others can see the holiday joy.
Located at 93 Brush Hill Road, there's more than 61,000 lights strewn across the yard decorating trees and reindeer and even a polar bear.
The Pevzner family started decorating in September by testing their hundreds of boxes of lights. He builds all of his own decorations like the star 10-foot star that shines done from 80-feet up, 10 10-foot trees, nine 5-foot trees, and even the sleigh, and more that he also uses a lift to make sure are perfect each year.
"I always decorated but I went big during COVID. I felt that people needed something positive and to bring joy and happiness to everyone," he wrote. "I strive to bring as much joy and happiness as I can during the holidays. I love it when I get a message about how much people enjoy it. I've received cards thanking me how much they enjoyed it and made them smile. That means a lot."
Pevzner starts thinking about next year's display immediately after they take it down after New Year's. He gets his ideas by asking on his Facebook page for people's favorite decorations. The Pevzner family encourages you to take a drive and see their decorations, which are lighted every night from 5 to 10.
In North Adams, the Wilson family decorates their house with fun inflatables and even a big Santa waving to those who pass by.
The Wilsons start decorating before Thanksgiving and started decorating once their daughter was born and have grown their decorations each year as she has grown. They love to decorate as they used to drive around to look at decorations when they were younger and hope to spread the same joy.
"I have always loved driving around looking at Christmas lights and decorations. It's incredible what people can achieve these days with their displays," they wrote.
The Wilsons' invite you to come and look at their display at 432 Church St. that's lit from 4:30 to 10:30 every night, though if it's really windy, the inflatables might not be up as the weather will be too harsh.
In Pittsfield, Travis and Shannon Dozier decorated their house for the first time this Christmas as they recently purchased their home on Faucett Lane. The two started decorating in November, and hope to bring joy to the community.
"If we put a smile on one child's face driving by, then our mission was accomplished," they said.
Many homeowners are showing their holiday spirit by decorating their houses. We asked for submissions so those in the community can check out these fanciful lights and decor when they're out.
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