Almost exactly 18 years ago, the Dré Wapenaar Pavilion was installed in Courtyard C — offering visitors a shady, sculptural respite on warm spring and summer days.

In June 2007, Rotterdam-based sculptor @drewapenaar worked with our Art Fabrication team to create the pavilion using a series of overlapping, colorful canopies designed to spark dynamic social encounters and inspire new perspectives on familiar rituals.

We’re looking forward to spending more sunny days under the “Dré Wapenaar Pavilion”, full of conversation and moments of connection ☀️

“El Chavez Ravine” sits at the heart of Vincent Valdez’s “Just a Dream…” In the work, painted onto a 1953 Good Humor ice cream truck, Valdez memorializes the predominantly Mexican-American families who were evicted from their homes by the city Los Angeles when it seized the Chavez Ravine neighborhood in order to construct Dodger Stadium in the 1950s. 

While the violence depicted in the work occurred a half-century ago, the subject matter is eerily resonant of contemporary events. The same could be said of dozens of works in “Just a Dream….”

In his own words, Valdez is “alarmed by the denial of history,” and has vowed to “continue to create counter-images to impede the social amnesia that includes our fateful desire to repeat it.” “I offer this work as a report — my visual testimony about a struggle for transformation, hope, love, and survival in twenty-first century America,” he says of the body of work that makes up “Just a Dream…”

"Hồn Xiêu Phách Lạc” is a Vietnamese idiom that describes a state of immense fear or experience of being stricken with terror.

"Phách Lạc (2017–2023)" (which translates to “Lost Spirits”) by Nguyễn Duy Mạnh – on view in Dirty & Disorderly: Contemporary Artists on Disgust – is part of a series of ceramics that literalizes this phrase.

The idiom draws on the Vietnamese traditional belief in the existence of two kinds of spirits that exit the body upon death: hồn (heavenly spirit) and phách (earthly spirit envelope). The title, alongside the wounding of traditional art forms in the work, reflects Nguyễn’s horror when confronted with the loss of tradition in favor of maximized efficiency under capitalism, and asks a viewer to question what has been left behind in the service of consumerism.

Learn more about the work and exhibition at the link in our bio!

Sometimes authors travel from across the country to talk at our R&D Store (@redevstoremassmoca), and sometimes they come from right in our backyard!

This Saturday, Genesis Báez and Christine Kelly, two artists from our local community, will be joining us for a book launch, signing, and reception during the upcoming @arrival.art Fair weekend.

Genesis Báez’s (@genesis__baez) monograph “Blue Sun” (@capriciouspublishing, 2025) spans a decade of photographic work made in Puerto Rico and its diaspora. “Blue Sun” offers a glimmering examination of matriarchal kinship through images of the elemental and generational.

In “Allow Me to Slip on Something a Little More Hypocycloid” (@prroblem.press, 2025), Christine Kelly (@spiral.repair) performs sleights of hand in which software instructions, punchlines, academic jargon, and everyday speech can try on one another’s costumes. Is this performance art or some sort of Ted Talk gone all wonky?

Head to the link in our bio for more info, and to sign up to join us Saturday at this celebration of local art (free for MASS MoCA members)!

A moonlit bar, a dizzying checkered floor, and a shattered glass door are just a few of the many elements incorporated into Vincent Valdez`s painting "Kill the Pachuco Bastard!" (2000) and used to set a cinematic scene depicting a fictionalized moment in the Zoot Suit Riots that occurred 82 years ago today, June 8, in Los Angeles, California.

As a student, Valdez researched the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943 — a series of violent clashes during which mobs of U.S. servicemen, off-duty police officers, and civilians fought with young Mexican-Americans or "zoot suiters" and other minorities in Los Angeles. That research resulted in "Kill the Pachuco Bastard!" (2000), a work that is a vivid display of the dehumanization that occurred during that time and was further amplified by the media.

Plan your visit to view this powerful work in Vincent Valdez: “Just a Dream…”, co-organized by @camhouston and MASS MoCA.

We`re just two weeks away from the official beginning of summer and our Community Day on June 21!

We can`t wait for museum to be packed with engaging and completely free events, like a conversation with Transdisciplinary artist and educator MX Oops on ecstatic aesthetics, activations of Alison Pebworth: "Cultural Apothecary," a vocal workshop with Martha Redbone, and a double projector multimedia art presentation from photographer Jason Fulford.

Check out the full lineup of events at the link in our bio and sign up to reserve your spot now!

This summer, The Research & Development Store is the hot spot for book talks all season long!

Hear Ben Shattuck read from his love letter to New England, “The History of Sound,” catch James B. Haile, III as he discusses his genre-crossing exploration of Black speculative imagination “The Dark Delight of Being Strange,” and chat with the creator of the iconic lesbian comic strip “Hothead Paisan” Dianna DiMassa on Thursday nights throughout the summer.

Visit the link in our bio to see the full lineup of eclectic offerings and save your spot!

Now on view in Building 4, Vincent Valdez: “Just a Dream...” the artist’s first major museum survey including work from over twenty years across all media.

Working across painting, video, drawing, sculpture, lithography, and multimedia installation, Valdez deftly addresses the failings and triumphs of contemporary American society with a reverential focus on collective memory and overlooked political histories.

Valdez states, “I create images as instruments to probe the past in order to reveal an immediacy to what is occurring today. I am alarmed by the denial of history. I will continue to create counter-images to impede the social amnesia that includes our fateful desire to repeat it.”

Plan your visit to see this thought-provoking exhibition today.

Vincent Valdez: “Just a Dream…” is co-organized by @camhouston and MASS MoCA.

📸: Jon Verney