MASS MoCA Season Starts May 28

 MASS MoCA launches into the summer season on May 28 with the opening of Building 6, the third phase of campus development, which encompasses more than 130,000 square feet of interior renovations to its 19th-century mill buildings. The noble architecture of the renovated factory building is a show unto itself: A center lightwell, part of the building’s original structure, but roofed in and sectioned off for decades, is rediscovered, and a two-story window at the western-most face of the building overlooks the confluence of the north and south branches of the Hoosic River while offering distant mountain vistas and intimate views of neighborhoods in the museum’s home city of North Adams. Bruner/Cott Associates, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based architectural firm that has authored most renovated museum spaces on the MASS MoCA campus, designed the building. Take in a day of activity to celebrate the opening expansion, including an all-day DJ, a marching band, and a parade of Nick Cave Soundsuits — activities that follow welcoming remarks to the public at 12pm. An outdoor concert-celebration with veteran rock band CAKE punctuates the building’s opening and marks the beginning of a huge summer season at MASS MoCA complete with concerts, art, film with live music, a dance party, and three sprawling music festivals.
 
Building 6 Exhibitions

The centerpiece of Building 6 is a series of exhibitions and long-term installations and collaborations with artists Laurie Anderson, Jenny Holzer, James Turrell, Louise Bourgeois, Robert Rauschenberg, and Gunnar Schonbeck. The presentations feature legacy and mid-career work of the artists, as well as new works, some of which are commissioned by or created expressly for MASS MoCA.
 
Multimedia artist Laurie Anderson exploits a new multifunctional environment to showcase her works of several mediums, including virtual reality, large-scale charcoal portraits, and sound. Her own recording studio is on view, and her rich audio archive is fully accessible. A James Turrell retrospective features nine installations — one of every major category and from every decade of his career — in a dramatic series of spaces custom-orchestrated for his sensory-depriving works. Jenny Holzer returns to MASS MoCA with an exhibition of her provocative Inflammatory Essays posters and an installation of paintings, LEDs, and stone benches that course across the entire 16-acre campus. A new outdoor projection by Holzer will be on view on River Street selected weekend evenings from May 27–July 1.
 
Visitors to Gunnar Schonbeck: No Experience Required can examine and play oversize, handmade original instruments, including 9-foot banjos and 10-foot drums made from airplane fuel tanks. Also oversize are Louise Bourgeois’ marble sculptures, weighing in at more than 30 tons. Two of the sculptures will be exhibited outside the artist’s studio for the first time ever. Spencer Finch returns to MASS MoCA with a stunning long-term installation of more than 1,000 LED light bulbs that represent the mix of pigments that match Cosmic Latte, the official name given to the unexpectedly beige color of the universe. Also on view is perhaps the largest-ever watercolor by artist Barbara Ernst Prey, Robert Rauschenberg’s A Quake in Paradise (Labyrinth), a collaborative exhibition by former Captiva Island artists in residence, Lonnie Holley and Dawn DeDeaux, a collection of three-dimensional structures of Sol LeWitt, Joe Wardwell’s Hello America: 40 Hits from the 50 States, and works by Liminal Camera, Janice Kerbel, Sarah Crowner, and North Adams-based artist Mary Lum, whose immersive painting, Assembly (Lorem Ipsum), lines the new bike corridor that runs through Building 6 and the MASS MoCA campus.
 
Nick Cave: Until

Nick Cave’s Until remains on view through August 2017, an exhibition in which MASS MoCA’s signature football field-size space is transformed into the artist’s largest installation to date. Made up of thousands of found objects and millions of beads — making viewers feel as if they have entered a rich sensory tapestry (or directly inside the belly of one of Cave’s iconic Soundsuits)—Until addresses issues of gun violence, gun control policy, race relations, and gender politics in America today. This summer the exhibition also serves as a launch pad for performances. Nona Hendryx collaborates with the artist on Saturday, August 19, for an evening of music, including a performance in the gallery for preferred ticket holders, and on the stage in the Hunter Center. Electric tutus and turn-up-the-volume jams included. Also performing in Cave’s Until this summer are spoken word artist Carl Hancock Rux, dancer and choreographer Francesca Harper, and musicians Brenda Wimberly and Sereca Henderson with live readings by spoken artist Poetic X.
 
Also in the Galleries

Tanja Hollander’s Are you really my friend? remains on view, featuring intimate portraits of 420 of the artist’s Facebook friends. Elizabeth King experiments with the idea of radical smallness, exhibiting her half-scale sculptures and stop-motion video projections in Radical Small. Steffani Jemison’s Plant You Now, Dig You Later features a multitude of mediums and works inspired by black resistance movements and unconventional methods of communication.
 
In the Abstract highlights the works of 11 artists that use abstraction as a metaphor for how we process the world around us. The Half-Life of Love, also featuring works by an intergenerational group of artists, visits the varied expressions of romantic encounters, from honeymoon to heartbreak. Both shows open with a members’ reception on Saturday, May 6, from 5:30–7pm. Wes Sam-Bruce’s CAVERNOUS: The Inner Life of Courage, an interactive exhibition that uses the Hoosac Tunnel as a metaphor for brave endeavors, opens in Kidspace on June 17. Other exhibitions on view through the summer include Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective, Franz West, and Anselm Kiefer.
 
Festivals

Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival returns June 23–25, featuring Wilco, band members’ solo projects, and a lineup curated by the band — including Television, Kurt Vile and the Violators, Robert Glasper Experiment, Kevin Morby, The Shaggs, and more. John Hodgman’s comedy lineup this year features Nick Offerman, Michael Ian Black, Eugene Mirman, and Aparna Nancherla. Expect a record number of visitors for the festival, which takes over the MASS MoCA campus and much of downtown North Adams for a weekend. Bang on a Can, a three-week contemporary music festival, fills MASS MoCA’s campus with new music from July 19–August 5, including Kids Can Too! on July 22, the annual Bang on a Can All-Stars concert on July 29, the Bang on a Can Marathon on August 5, and daily recitals, late-night performances, and Chalet appearances throughout their stay. On September 15–17, the museum campus transforms into a bluegrass and roots haven with the FreshGrass Festival, this year featuring Brandi Carlile, The Del McCoury Band with David Grisman, Railroad Earth, Bill Frisell, The Wood Brothers, and Alison Brown — more than 50 bands in all.
 
Concerts

On May 28, the witty and gritty CAKE takes Joe’s Field for the band’s only Massachusetts stop on its upcoming tour. Lauded for its wry lyrics and “deadpan brilliance” (The New Yorker), the five-piece band promises a party and a rocking atmosphere to jumpstart the summer. The seven-time Grammy Award-winning My Morning Jacket keeps the musical momentum going with a blowout concert on Joe’s Field on Saturday, August 12. One of the most electric bands in concert — in no small part due to Jim James’ otherworldly vocals — the “kings of expand-your-mind, religious-experience rock” (Rolling Stone) light up the night with support by The Districts.
 
More Live Music

Devoting an entire concert to Bob Dylan’s songs, Joan Osborne takes our courtyard concert venue on Friday, July 7. She cuts her bluesy-rock sound into Dylan’s shapeshifting catalogue for a “fiercely intelligent, no-nonsense” show (The New York Times). Booker T. Jones takes that same stage on Saturday, July 22 for a night of hot and heavy funk. Well-known for his days as a Stax Records sessions player with the M.G.’s and for his illustrious Green Onions, Jones dives into a set of recognizable classics and driving new works. Local favorite and Grammy-celebrated Roomful of Teeth returns home to MASS MoCA on August 26, pushing the boundaries of the human voice for an endlessly explorative performance. Expect a blowout dance party in the courtyard on Saturday, September 2 with Underground System with Underground Horns, procurers of Lagos-inspired club and brass jams.
 
Film

On Saturday, July 15, MASS MoCA screens the original 1979 Mad Max outdoors in its central courtyard. The hot New York City ensemble Morricone Youth performs a re-imagined live score for the cult-favorite film, injecting new life into the apocalyptic adventure. Continuing the summer tradition, MASS MoCA takes over the North Adams airport on Friday, August 25 with a screening of The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! on the door of an airplane hangar. Burgers, beer, and a wacky film make this evening one of the most anticipated of the summer.
 
Comedy

The “jaw dropping and hysterically funny” (Slate.com) podcast RISK! comes to MASS MoCA for a live recording-performance on Saturday, July 1. Tune in as host Keith Allison leads an anything-goes night of laugh-till-you-cry truth-telling.
 
Families

Mil's Trills brings its bubbly music and playful personality to MASS MoCA for an afternoon of kid-friendly performance on Saturday, June 17, at 2pm. Come early for the opening of CAVERNOUS: The Inner Life of Courage in our Kidspace gallery with a reception at 11am.
 
Beer Garden

Beginning June 29, join us throughout the summer on Thursday evenings for drinks and conversation in artist Dean Baldwin’s The Chalet, an art installation that doubles as a beer garden. Live music pulls you in most weeks.
 
Buy Now, Save Big
MASS MoCA discounts tickets 25% for all summer 2017 shows, if tickets are purchased by May 3, 2017. Early-bird prices do not include festivals, camps, CAKE, My Morning Jacket, or $5 member tickets. Discounts do not combine, and discounted tickets are nonrefundable and non-transferrable.
 
Season at a Glance, by Date