Mass MOCA

Last night Wilco returned to Mass MoCA to headline the third Solid Sound Festival this weekend. Under a big bright moon on a perfect evening they performed a set of requests for some 4,000 mellow fans. We got a contact high as pungent skunk weed perfumed the Berkshire air.

A former model, Matuschka, created a riveting self portrait revealing a radical masectomy. It was on the cover of the New York Times Magazine and has been published in a Time Life book as one the 100 most influential photographs of the 20th century. With the recent coverage of Angelina Jolie ironically Matuschka is back in the news. Yesterday we attended her 40 year retrospective of self portraits at Sohn Fine Arts in Stockbridge.

Julianne Boyd, the artistic director of Barrington Stage in Pittsfield called for a morning chin wag about the upcoming season. That led to a lively discussion of the current state of theatre and impact of criticism. Now in its 8th season the company has just completed raising $7 million. This is part one of an extended dialogue.

Aaron Neville's recent release, My True Story, is a collection of classic doo-wop numbers. To create the album, Neville teamed up with Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones and the legendary Blue Note label producer, Don Was. Showcasing the old-school rhythm and blues that were the key influences throughout his career, Neville covers The Drifters, The Clovers, and Little Anthony and the Imperials. "Opportunities like this don't come 'round very often," says Richards. "I grew up with these songs, like Aaron did. It's such a pleasure to play with a voice like that."

MASS MoCA's summer will include music from seasoned performers like Bettye LaVette and rising stars like Gabriel Kahane with Rob Moose, the annual Bang on a Can Festival of Contemporary Music, Wilco's Solid Sound Festival, and "circus punk marching band" Mucca Pazza.

Over the years we heard Richie Havens perform on many occasions. Including at 2009 concert at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield. He returned to the Berkshires and Mass MoCA in 2010. He is best remembered for opening the Woodstock Rock Festival in 1969 and later being included in the film and album of that event. It established a career that ended only recently because of deteriorating health. He is recalled as one of the great voices and unique stylists of his generation.

Xu Bing will deliver a public lecture about his work on Friday, April 26, at 5pm in MASS MoCA's Hunter Center. In addition to Phoenix Project the new installations include large format pen and ink drawings from Square Word Calligraphy series; his first hand-drawn animation, the 50’ wide, 17-minute The Character of Characters (2013) portraying the history of Chinese writing; and Book from the Ground.

Set aside, a day, week, month or year to fully absorb and comprehend the obsessive/ compulsive details of a troika of new special exhibitions at Mass MoCA. The sprawling contemporary art museum in North Adams has just launched Mark Dion: The Octagon Room, One Minute Film Festival: 10 Years, and Life’s Work: Tom Phillips and Johnny Carrera. During a gala celebration we caught just a tantalizing glimpse of dauntingly dense and complex work.

Cinema Lounge at Mass MoCA screened the Canadian Indi-Film BUZKASHI! recently, which was shot in Tajikistan, Central Asia. Buzkashi, an ancient sport, is vaguely a cross between rugby and polo with few rules. The ‘ball,’ however, is a headless goat. There may be 200 riders on a huge field and slowly the film develops the game and its main characters into a fantastic tale set in a vast and fascinating landscape.

Although Indiana is a staunchly conservative red state the Indianapolis Museum Art is currently hosting a survey of work by the world's most radical living artist. Ai Weiwei: According to What? will be on view through July 28. There is an encylopedic collection of some 54,000 works. We also visited the nearby 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art and Nature Park which opened in 2010.

Del McCoury, Leftover Salmon, The Infamous Stringdusters, Sam Bush, The Lone Bellow, and Dr. Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys are part of the first wave of performers announced for the FreshGrass festival. Bill Evans, Jerry Douglas, Alison Brown, Edgar Meyer and Mike Marshall, The Wood Brothers, Dan Zanes, Elizabeth Mitchell, Lake Street Dive, The Gibson Brothers, Noam Pikelny and Friends, John Reischman and the Jaybirds, Elephant Revival, Darol Anger, and Mandolin Orange are also confirmed.

The second installment of MASS MoCA's Book Club will feature artists Johnny Carrera and Tom Phillips. It will be held on April 3rd at 6pm in the Life's Work exhibition. Unlike traditional book clubs, this program makes connections between museum exhibitions and the written word.

The artist run Eclipse Mill Gallery at 248 Union Street in North Adams announces its program for the 2013 season. It starts on April 20 with the annual High School Invitational in cooperation with Mass MoCA. The always lively Berkshire Salon follows from May 10 through June 2. A diverse schedule is planned including photography by the late Leonard Freed, Pin Hole Photography, and large format photographs by Chad Kleitsch. Joan Carney will be featured during Open Studios in October. The season ends with holiday themed small works November 15 to December 22.

We visited Ai Weiwei: According to What? at the Hirshhorn in DC mid February. The five museum tour or work by the dissident, iconoclast Chinese artist will be on view at the Indianapolis Museum of Art from April 5 through July 28. Ai who remains under house arrest in China is one of the world's most influential and controversial artists.

On Friday, June 21 at the Solid Sound Festival at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA, Wilco will perform a unique concert comprised exclusively of fan-requested songs, including covers. The band will take song submissions in advance and promises to learn fifty of those songs for the festival.

With the appointment of Larry Smallwood, MASS MoCA has named its first-ever Deputy Director. Smallwood previously worked for the institution as its first Production Manager in the Performing Arts and later as Visual Arts Production and Technical Manager. He will return to the museum in his new role on February 25, 2013.

Now in his second term as Mayor of North Adams Massachusetts there was hope and expectation of change when he defeated the long term Mayor John Barrett III. Other than a dramatic rise in property taxes there is scant evidence of progress. Many attribute that to catching up with decades of neglect, collapsed infractucture, decline in schools and social services. An architect, gallerist and pragmatic visionary Ralph Brill in an open letter to Alcombright offers a blue print for change and the creation of jobs for the depressed city.

Joining the three-day Wilco celebration at Mass MoCA will be the acclaimed singer and songwriter Neko Case, indie-rock heroes Yo La Tengo, jazz adventurists Medeski, Martin and Wood, Duluth's low-fi darlings Low and a reunited Dream Syndicate whose Solid Sound performance will mark the full band's first North American concert in 25 years.

In Boston's blue collar neighborhoods digging out parking spots evokes survival of the fittest and the law of the jungle. Shovel out a spot and you own it. Move and mark your space with a lawn chair. Leave and hope that its not occupied when you come back. If not all hell breaks loose.

Comedian, author, television personality and historian John Hodgman returns to Solid Sound 2013 to present another hand-picked line-up of comedic talent on Saturday, June 22. The Solid Sound Festival, brainchild of the Chicago-based musical innovators Wilco, returns to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) in North Adams on June 21-23.

The vast vaulted space of Building Five is roughly the length and width of two, end to end, football fields. Globally, there are only a handful of similar spaces. The basic approach of artists over the last 13 years has been to jam it full or leave it relatively empty. The current installation "Phoenix" by Xu Bing realizes its full potential. In this second and final installment of an extensive dialogue Mass MoCA director Joe Thopson discusses the museum's programming and challenges.

Even before Mass MoCA opened Joe Thompson was negotiating with the Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping to participate in the group exhibition Unnatural Science in 2001. That led to a retrospective organized by the Walker Art Center. Major installations followed in the vast Building Five by Cai Guo-Qiang and currently Phoenix by Xu Bing which is on view for the coming year. This is the first of two parts of a dialogue about contemporary Chinese Art.

There were many daunting impediments in presenting Phoenix a vast sculptural installation by the leading Chinese artist, Xu Bing, at Mass MoCA. This third major project with contemporary Chinese artists remains on view in North Adams for the coming year.

The exhibition Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe originated at Mass MoCA. We reviewed the Guggenheim Museum installation for Maverick Arts in 2008. This was one of three major exhibitions featuring contemporary Chinese artists. The others were Huang Yong Ping in 2006 and the current, 2012-2013 installation by Xu Bing.

This article originally appeared in Maverick Arts a site prior to Berkshire Fine Arts in 2006. Because of the continued interest in contemporary Chinese art by Mass MoCA is has been reposted. The museum is currently showing Xu Bing. This article has a link to a recent exhibition of work by Ping in New York.