Mass MOCA

Susan Cross has been appointed to the new position of Director of Curatorial Affairs at MASS MoCA following a nationwide search.   

Nobody but Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr. could have written such a remarkable book. Drawing on a lifetime as a curator and scholar he has provided a sweeping critical analysis of the field of American Art from Colonial times through the present. With complete authority he rampages through an intriguingly well written and argued book that pulls no punches in telling it like it is.

This exhibition contains stories on video and artwork inspired by ancestors created and told by myself, and my family, friends, and neighbors. We all come with our personal stories. I began exploring my own story in my artwork through a 2024 project entitled The Little Red House.

The first band to sign with MASS MoCA Records is The Kasambwe Brothers, a multi-generational band who has been making music together for almost 40 years and are grounded in the rich, musical heritage of Malawi, Africa.

Jacob’s Pillow  announces the presentation of its first-ever fully-produced fall program on campus featuring a special weekend run of Caleb Teicher & Nic Gareiss, an evening-length duo concert performed by the acclaimed dancers and creative partners. 

Olivier Meslay, the Hardymon Director of the Clark Art Institute, will step down from his leadership role in July 2026, concluding a decade of change and growth that has seen the Clark flourish in international stature and engagement. Meslay, a widely respected curator and art historian, will return to his native France to pursue a variety of independent projects.

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MASS MoCA announces new programming through December 2025, including the opening of exhibitions Jimena Sarno: Rhapsody and Zora J Murff: RACE/HUSTLE, concerts by Chuwi and Harold López-Nussa and plenty of opportunities to experience the museum for free including a celebration of Día de los Muertos, Open Studios, and an after-hours Family Night. FreshGrass | North Adams, the campus-wide festival of roots and bluegrass music, kicks it all off with the best in the genre.   

Touch of RED by Shamel Pitts | TRIBE will get a Jacob’s Pillow premiere that has been five years in the making. This performance will be a homecoming. In the Ted Shawn Theatre, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company will make their first appearance at the Pillow since 2012, running August 6 through 10. Now in their 43rd year, the company is performing two seminal works from their historic repertoire: D-Man in the Waters set to Felix Mendelssohn’s soaring Octet for Strings  (1989) and Story/ (2013) performed to Death and the Maiden by Franz Schubert played live.

A second generation Mexican American, Victor Valdez, was a prodigy who with a mentor was painting public murals at the age of 10. Now at mid career the remarkable artists is the subject of a riveting retrospective at MASS MoCA. It features a 30' panorama of hooded Ku Klux Klan members.

15 organizations and concerned citizens in the Berkshires hosted: Relay for Democracy; No Kings North Adams, Great Barrington, West Stockbridge  and Pittsfield; and Projecting Democracy, from 8 in the morning until 11 pm at night. A very busy and important day!

The leaders of ten arts and culture institutions from across Berkshire County have convened the Berkshire Arts and Culture Alliance (BACA) to advocate for the economic, tourism, and infrastructure needs of arts and culture organizations in the county.

"Power Full Because We Are Different" is a monumental installation by Native American artist Jeffrey Gibson. The inspiration and intent of the project is to articulate and express the concept of the “two-spirit,” a third gender that is both—and neither—male and female and is embraced by many Indigenous cultures. Significantly the far right regime of President Donald Trump has rescinded a $50,000 NEA grant for this ambitious and expansive project.

Resident Artists and Authors from the Eclipse Mill show their work during Berkshire Art Week.

On Friday night, the National Endowment for the Arts sent MASS MoCA an email notification of the termination of our awarded grant for the support of Jeffrey Gibson’s commission POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENT.

MASS MoCA today announces its full lineup of summer programming. Following the celebratory opening weekend of Vincent Valdez: Just A Dream…, this summer’s concerts, workshops, and events include SNACKTIME (July 12), Guster & The Mountain Goats (July 26), and many others live in concert; the final Like Magic: Screening Series (June 7) prior to the exhibition’s September closure; the return of MASS MoCA’s summer fun spot The Chalet; and a late summer outdoor show with Lake Street Dive (September 6); among other energizing offerings.

Steve Locke is having a show now installed at MassMoCA (opened last August – goes to until Nov 8). Three years ago I wrote a poem to Steve, whom I know, after seeing his exhibition of “Cruising” at the Alexander Grey Gallery

Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival 2025 will feature indoor performances in the landmark Ted Shawn Theatre and the newly-opened Doris Duke Theatre, as well as outdoor performances on the Henry J. Leir Stage. The return of the Doris Duke Theatre restores Jacob’s Pillow to its full presenting capacity for the first time since 2020, reuniting the Festival’s three core performance spaces and offering audiences an unparalleled range of dance experiences across the Pillow’s grounds.

Ohan Breiding is a Swiss-American artist, raised in a Swiss village and living between Brooklyn, N.Y., and Williamstown, MA. They work with photography, photographic and filmic archives, and video in a collaborative practice that reinterprets historical events, putting the past into a meaningful transformative relation with the present. They employ a trans-feminist lens to the discussion of ecological care to amplify the systemic failures and violence of the Anthropocene. 

Designed by the leading Dutch architecture firm Mecanoo, the reimagined Doris Duke Theatre occupies the site of the former studio theater from 1990, destroyed by fire in November 2020.  The new theater aims to become one of the world’s most technologically advanced dance venues, providing a makerspace for artists seeking to integrate artificial intelligence, extended reality, robotics, and immersive platforms into live performance.

Upon initial exposure the work of Richard Criddle and Joanna Klain could not be more different,. With further contemplation, however, there are many commonalities. They share an experimental and adventurous approach to materials, in her case collaged paintings, and in his assembled sculptures from found objects. Both artists evoke narrative in their work. Her's are inspired by dreams and night mares while his entail the darkest of humor.

Both artists have their own extensive exhibition histories. Both have in recent years have become more playful and experimental in their independent approaches. Synchronicity exists between their recent work. Each separately builds and composes imaginary imagery that reflect interior preoccupations with the mysterious and the mischievous. Reception Saturday the 19th of October at 3pm.

Jeffrey Gibson’s POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENT is a newly commissioned immersive installation that will occupy MASS MoCA’s signature Building 5 gallery and follows Gibson’s highly celebrated United States representation at the 60th edition of La Biennale di Venezia. The exhibition opens on November 3.

This summer, the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) invites you to reimagine the world of maps and globes in an installation conceived by Argentinian artist Agustina Woodgate. In Ballroom, the gallery floor is filled with globes that have been meticulously sanded to remove all traces of information, transforming what were once vital sources of knowledge into mute objects.

The exhibition title temporary arrangements refers to Mary Lum’s journeys though the streets of New York and Paris, observing the fragments of a crumbling façade of a building, a vendor’s pushcart, or a poster for a vernissage, which may have a short shelf life in the urban environment. Lum takes photographs on the streets looking at geometric forms, planes of color, and text.