In James Turrell’s hands, light is more than a source of illumination: it is a discrete, physical object. His sculptures and architectural interventions elevate our experience and perception of light and space — creating an environment where architecture disintegrates and brilliant geometric shapes levitate in midair. 

Visit the @massmoca digital guide on @bloombergconnects to learn more about James Turrell’s beloved retrospective “Into the Light,” on view in Building 6: The Robert W. Wilson Building.

📷: James Turrell, “Perfectly Clear” and “Afrum (white)”. Photos: Florian Holzherr.

Happy Earth Day! In thinking about the ways that our Earth has been portrayed in art, we`re looking back at MASS MoCA`s 2008 exhibition "Badlands: New Horizons in Landscape."

The tradition of portraying the landscape has threaded together movements as varied as the mid-19th century Hudson River School and the Earth Art of the 1960s and ’70s. "Badlands: New Horizons in Landscape" opened the next chapter in the landscape tradition, addressing contemporary ideas of exploration, population of the wilderness, land usage, environmental politics, and aesthetic beauty. While deeply aware of the legacy of the landscape, each of these artists reinvented the genre to produce works that looked beyond vast beauty to address current environmental issues.

Pictured: Vaughn Bell, "Personal Biospheres," Jennifer Steinkamp, "Mike Kelley," and Alexis Rockman, "South".

"Under a petrographic lens, the ice gives up its stories: particles of dust from volcanoes erupting millennia ago; minute fragments of meteor showers that rained on the planet before civilization as we know it was born.

Closer to the surface are layers of ice that hold the residue of the first belching breaths of the industrial era in the 19th century, the seeds of its demise. Less than a century later, the glacier stopped accumulating ice and began shedding it — releasing history, decade by decade," writes The Boston Globe`s Murray Whyte on Ohan Breiding`s "Belly of a Glacier," on view in Building 4.

See the link in our bio to read the full article and learn more about the exhibition!

Celebrate summer at MASS MoCA with a season of energizing offerings!

We’re taking advantage of the Berkshires’ sun and our expansive campus this year, with music under the stars by Lake Street Dive, Guster, and The Mountain Goats, not to mention returning favorites The Chalet, FreshGrass, and Bang on a Can: LOUD Weekend. Our galleries and indoor stages will be buzzing too, with comedy from SNL talents Sarah Sherman and Julio Torres, musical activations of Jeffrey Gibson’s “POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENT” by MX Oops and Martha Redbone, and a selection of author talks in the Research and Development Store.

Ticketed events go on sale to MASS MoCA members today. Tickets to the general public go on sale beginning Friday, April 18, at 10am.

Visit the link in our bio to learn more and explore our full summer season!

This Thursday, April 17, Berkshire county high schoolers will exhibit their artworks at MASS MoCA`s 13th Annual Teen Invitational — a weekend–long pop-up exhibition featuring over 250 works of visual art by high school students and teachers in the northern Berkshires.

This event is free and open to the public. Learn more at the link in our bio.

Throughout North Adams Public Schools` April Break, starting on April 21, MASS MoCA`s Museum Educators will be offering free workshops in Kidspace! Each workshop will teach participants a new art making skill inspired by a current MASS MoCA exhibition, such as Carly Glovinvki`s "Almanac" and James Turrell`s "Into the Light."

See the link in our bio to sign up a young artist today.

This coming Saturday, April 12, artist Petra Szilagyi — whose installation “Bless Your Hard Drive” is on view in our “Like Magic” exhibition — and post–humanist thinker Bayo Akomolafe will host an “Apocalypse Anonymous” meeting in the Research and Development store. The program will invite participants to share their own experiences, strength, and hope, with the goal of supporting one another as we exist amidst apocalypse after apocalypse.

Tickets available at the link in our bio!

Now on view in Building 8, Randi Malkin Steinberger: "The Archive of Lost Memories".

Giving new life to old things, Steinberger provides a window into the lives of the forgotten through a vast collection of found photographs, slides, and tintypes that she has gathered over years of trolling flea markets, eBay, and other sources. Salvaging and preserving these abandoned objects, Steinberger honors the memories embedded within them.

Throughout the course of a three month residency, Steinberger will be working in Building 8 — the home of MASS MoCA’s Summer Chalet events — creating an ever-evolving environment that functions as a studio space, archive, installation, and cabinet of curiosities.

Visit the link in our bio to learn more about this exhibition.

On this #ThrowbackThursday and in celebration of the artist`s work at the renovated @frickcollection, opening on April 17, we`re looking back at Darren Waterston`s 2014–15 installation "Filthy Lucre."

The centerpiece to Waterson`s exhibition "Uncertain Beauty," "Filthy Lucre" portrayed a version of James McNeill Whistler’s 1876 decorative masterpiece "Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room," commissioned by the shipping magnate Frederick Leyland, as though the greed that enabled its creation had infected the walls of the room itself, causing it to begin a slow but beautiful process of decay.

Inside the sumptuous ruin, viewers found Waterston’s re-interpretations of Whistler’s paintings, with glaze appearing to ooze down the wall and the shimmering central peacock mural partially melted into the floor in a puddle of gold. The room also held stalactite-like ceiling fixtures, moldy lamps, and crumbling shelving replete with 250 hand-painted ceramic vessels.

Learn more about "Filthy Lucre" at the link in our bio!

Did you know that the average viewer spends only 21 seconds in front of a work of art? Let’s change that, together!

Come celebrate International Slow Art Day at MASS MoCA on April 5! Take a slow-looking tour at noon or 2pm, or just take your time as you wander through our galleries and see what you can get out of slowing down.

Work pictured: “Perfectly Clear,” James Turrell
Photo credit: Florian Holzherr

On this Trans Day of Visibility, we`re celebrating the numerous Indigenous, two-spirit creatives including DJs, drag performers, academics, and activists whose work makes up the five-channel video work "Your Spirit Whispers in My Ear" that greets visitors to Jeffrey Gibson`s exhibition "POWER FULL BECAUSE WE`RE DIFFERENT."

The video, which interlaces documentary footage with shots of preening drag queens, is a celebration of sovereignty, power, and agency, as the Two-Spirit community unapologetically declares its presence, echoing writer Qwo-Li Driskill’s powerful proclamation: “we were stolen from our bodies, but now we are taking ourselves back. First Nations Two-Spirits are blooming like dandelions in the landscape of a racist, homophobic, and transphobic culture’s ordered garden."

"Your Spirit Whispers in My Ear" features work by:
Sean Stevens and Adrian Snyder, Ty Fierce Metteba, Navi Ho, Carla Rossi, Joseph Pierce, Miko Thomas, Morgan Wallace, Arielle Twist, Lou Cornum, Kairyn Potts, Lady Shug, Beejee (Qahir-beejee Llaneza) Peco, Cocoa Chandelier, Jontay Kahm, Dan Taulapapa McMullin, Razelle Benally, Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie, Yoli, Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, Charlie Amáyá Scott, Kira Xonorika, Evan James Atwood, and Theo Jean Cuthand.