Opening Reception

Join us on May 25 to celebrate the opening of four new exhibitions: Annie Lennox: ‘Now I Let You Go…’, Cauleen Smith: We Already Have What We Need, Suffering from Realness, and Joe Manning: Looking at North Adams.  This opening reception is free for all.

Across and within a massive earthen mound wending through two galleries, renowned performer and social activist Annie Lennox will create a site-specific installation comprised of hundreds of artifacts culled from her personal collection of memorabilia, found objects, and personal effects amassed throughout her lifetime.

Spanning the entirety of MASS MoCA’s expansive first-floor galleries, Cauleen Smith’s exhibition—her most comprehensive to date—will feature a new immersive installation, a survey of her videos made over the last decade, new textiles, a selection of banners from her “In the Wake” series featured in the 2017 Whitney Biennial, a written manifesto, and new works on paper.

Suffering From Realness explores the politics of representation — and the ways in which artists use the body to grasp at and re-center the “aura of realness” in an age of uncertainty. The exhibition features close to 20 artists, including Titus Kaphar, Jeffrey Gibson, Vincent Valdez, Adriana Corral, and more.

Author and historian Joe Manning speaks to life in and around this city — referencing the trains, hills, rivers, and buildings that shape life in North Adams. Manning’s short texts, describing and illuminating the views through mill building windows throughout the museum, are excerpted from his publications about North Adams history and drawn from oral histories of city residents.

We’ll be kicking things off with An Afternoon of Conversation and Song with Annie Lennox, a performance to benefit The Annie Lennox Foundation and MASS MoCA’s Fund for New Music, and continuing the evening with a block party and dance concert with Tank and the Bangas to celebrate MASS MoCA’s 20th birthday.

Principal exhibition support for Suffering From Realness is provided by the Artist’s Resource Trust (A.R.T.) Fund, a fund of Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, with lead support from Christopher and Alida Latham, contributing support from Bridget Rigas, and additional support from Caroline Cunningham and Donald Young. Generous funding for the exhibition catalog comes from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation.

Principal exhibition support for We Already Have What We Need is provided by Anne and Greg Avis and the Coby Foundation. Lead support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts with contributing support from LEE Filters and Susan J. Weiler.

In-kind exhibition support for Annie Lennox: ‘Now I Let You Go…’ is provided by Today Glitter, Bio-glitter, and Blue Sun International. Special thanks to Displays2Go.

Programming at MASS MoCA is made possible in part by the Barr Foundation, Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, and Mass Cultural Council.