A hero’s tale, freshly told at Mass MoCA The Boston Globe

For Immediate Release
12 August 2015
Contact: Jodi Joseph
Director of Communications
413.664.4481 x8113
jjoseph@massmoca.org

Free North Adams! MASS MoCA Expands Free Admission Program for 01247 residents

North Adams neighbors admitted to galleries free of charge on the 4^th day of each month, October 4, 2015 – June 4, 2016

NORTH ADAMS, MASSACHUSETTS — North Adams residents should mark their calendars for the 4^th of each month, October 2015 through June 2016. MASS MoCA offers free gallery admission to its North Adams neighbors—those living in the 01247 zip code—beginning this fall, and continuing through spring 2016.

Building on the popularity of a pilot program to offer free admission to North Adams residents one day each month during its non-summer season, this year’s program kicks off on Sunday, October 4, accompanied by free hotdogs following the North Adams Fall Foliage parade.

MASS MoCA has traditionally taken one Saturday every winter to throw open its doors and welcome the crowds in for free. Last year, the museum was approached by several North Adams city councilors who suggested that many residents work on weekends and therefore could not make it to the museum for its annual free day, but would relish the opportunity to access the museum more affordably. The idea of a rotating day of the week throughout the year, with free admission to city residents, was hatched. In the spring of 2015, MASS MoCA saw its attendance during Free North Adams days increase by almost one-third as city families, friends, teachers, and students took advantage of free admission to check out the art museum in their backyard.

This season, Free North Adams kicks off on October 4 with a Free For All event following the city’s annual Fall Foliage parade. Celebrating the 60^th year of that storied parade, the museum welcomes all visitors (city residents and beyond) free of charge beginning at 2pm. Free hotdogs (while supplies last!) will be served next to SuttonBeresCuller’s Big Top Grand Stand, a work of circus-like proportion resembling a concession stand, which the museum installed for its Solid Sound Festival this past June.

“One of the highlights of our annual Free Day is watching kids—who visit the museum’s Kidspace several times a year as part of their schooling—come into the museum, leading their parents through the galleries,” notes MASS MoCA deputy director Larry Smallwood. “It’s rewarding for us to find opportunities to see more of that.”

Residents residing within the 01247 zip code (including Clarksburg and Florida, MA) should bring a government-issued ID or a utility bill with current address (and picture ID) when visiting the museum.  MASS MoCA’s galleries, located at 87 Marshall Street, are open 10am to 6pm every day, with extended evening hours to 7pm on Thursdays through Saturdays, when performing arts events are often featured, through September 7. Beginning September 8, the museum is open from 11am to 5pm every day of the week, except Tuesdays.

Other Free Programs
The annual mid-winter Free Day (which is open to all visitors, not just 01247 residents) is scheduled for January 30 next year. The museum also has a long-term partnership with several libraries in the region, including the North Adams Public Library, through which library users can “check out” a free admission pass to MASS MoCA for up to four visitors.

Admission to Kidspace, the museum’s child-centered gallery and art-making space, is always free, all year long. During the academic year, Kidspace collaborates with the region’s elementary schools to provide arts education programming, bringing thousands of local schoolchildren through the museum for free each year.

About MASS MoCA
MASS MoCA is one of the world’s liveliest (and largest) centers for making and enjoying today’s most important art, music, dance, theater, film, and video. Hundreds of works of visual and performing art have been created on its 19^th-century factory campus during fabrication and rehearsal residencies, making MASS MoCA among the most productive sites in the country for the creation and presentation of new art. More platform than box, MASS MoCA strives to bring to its audiences art experiences that are fresh, engaging, and transformative.

MASS MoCA’s galleries are open 11am to 5pm every day except Tuesdays. The Hall Art Foundation’s Anselm Kiefer exhibition is open during museum hours, through November (weather permitting). The Kiefer exhibition reopens for the spring and summer seasons in mid-April. Gallery admission is $18 for adults, $16 for veterans and seniors, $12 for students, $8 for children 6 to 16, and free for children 5 and under. Members are admitted free year-round. For additional information, call 413.662.2111 x1 or visit massmoca.org.

Download the Free on the 4s press release

For Immediate Release
4 November 2014
Contact: Jodi Joseph
Director of Communications
413.664.4481 x8113
jjoseph@massmoca.org

MASS MoCA Awarded Grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Funds support future artist residencies in the visual and performing arts

NORTH ADAMS, MASSACHUSETTS — MASS MoCA announces a $500,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support the creation and presentation of new work at the intersection of the visual and performing arts through its Confluence Artist Residencies. Leveraging the museum’s existing technical and production residency program, Made at MASS MoCA, the Mellon initiative deepens collaborative relationships and specifically targets projects that cross over between the fields of the performing and visual arts. It also supports training and experiential-based education through the creation of a two-year Confluence Internship program.

Confluence Artist Residencies increase MASS MoCA’s services, facilities, expertise, and audience interactions with artists whose works do not fit easily into a narrow definition of performing or visual arts. “This kind of collaboration is often the most interesting, but also the most difficult to achieve because of scheduling difficulties and complicated technical needs. Work that ‘crosses over’ between theatrical practice and gallery installation draws on all our institutional resources. It is challenging work, risky, essential, and at the heart of MASS MoCA’s mission to help make and show art of unusual ambition and scale,” says Joseph Thompson, director, MASS MoCA.

The museum has become a sought-after, distinctive residency option for artists. MASS MoCA’s respect for artists and the artistic process, its theatrical and sculptural production capabilities, and its creative environment set it apart from many other residency options. “MASS MoCA starts by saying ‘yes’ to our artists and tailors residencies to what the artist needs,” says Sue Killam, MASS MoCA’s managing director of performing arts. “This approach is magnified ten-fold by the fact that our rehearsal, performance, and studio spaces are valued by artists for their generous dimensions and quality, and also for their flexibility. For example, both of our theater spaces and the audience configurations can be customized; if an artist is preparing a new work for a premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), for example, MASS MoCA can nearly replicate that space here.” Artists feel comfortable experimenting in a shared production and/or fabrication process with MASS MoCA staff without fear of a high-pressure premiere schedule.

For the visual arts, wood and metal-working shops, in addition to long- and short-term artist studio space, are available at flexible hours. The museum has excellent welders, riggers, and carpenters on its art fabrication crews. Curator Susan Cross points to a recent collaboration between artist Ann Hamilton and the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival as an example of the museum’s support of artists whose projects reach across disciplines. “The incredibly lively musical performance — incorporating instruments and wearable works on paper designed by Hamilton with music and choreography by Bang on a Can — demonstrates the creative possibilities for the kind of cooperation and combined programming that will be fostered by the Mellon.”

The Confluence Artist Residency program hosts two residencies per year dedicated to the creation of new interdisciplinary work. The chosen projects require, on average, three-week residencies and involve multiple artists and their respective support staff. Residency artists and art collectives are selected by the MASS MoCA curatorial staff for their potential to draw on the full range of institutional resources.

The first full-scale Confluence Artist Residency will occur between February 20, 2015, and March 8, 2015, when dancer/choreographer Lucinda Childs, architect/artist Frank Gehry, and composer John Adams are in residence at MASS MoCA to re-conceive Available Light. In 1983, Available Light was the first in a series of projects commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (LA MOCA) that gathered teams of artists to develop collaborative performance pieces. Available Light represents the first and only time that Childs, Gehry, and Adams worked together. The trio began collaborating in 1981; after two years, they added to their team theatrical lighting designer Beverly Emmons and noted fashion designer Ronaldus Shamask. Together, the group created an hour-long, multi-layered work comprised of 11 dancers, original music for synthesizers, a set with industrial platforms and chain link fencing material, pod-like costumes, and light. Available Light combines dance, music, and visual art (architecture, design, and lighting); in re-envisioning the work, the artists will update and refresh the original show, configuring it for travel to other venues, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2015.

Confluence Internship
Over the course of the three-year Mellon-funded project, MASS MoCA will offer two specialized Confluence Internships for those interested in pursuing a career at the junction of the visual and performing arts. These interns will work closely with the curatorial and performing arts departments, researching, writing about, and assisting on all aspects of realizing Confluence Artist Residencies. Modeled after MASS MoCA’s highly successful visual arts internship program with the Graduate Program in the History of Art, a joint program of Williams College and the Clark Art Institute, Confluence interns are trained and mentored in all areas of production. But with its 48-month time commitment, the Confluence Internships will be distinct from MASS MoCA’s long-established intern education program, which provides housing and stipends to 40 interns each year.

About MASS MoCA
MASS MoCA is one of the world’s liveliest (and largest) centers for making and enjoying today’s most important art, music, dance, theater, film, and video. Hundreds of works of visual and performing art have been created on its 19th-century factory campus during fabrication and rehearsal residencies, making MASS MoCA among the most productive sites in the country for the creation and presentation of new art. More platform than box, MASS MoCA strives to bring to its audiences art experiences that are fresh, engaging, and transformative.

MASS MoCA’s galleries are open 11am to 5pm every day except Tuesdays. The Hall Art Foundation’s Anselm Kiefer exhibition is open seasonally, through November 30. Gallery admission is $18 for adults, $16 for veterans and seniors, $12 for students, $8 for children 6 to 16, and free for children 5 and under. Members are admitted free year-round. For additional information, call 413.662.2111 x1 or visit massmoca.org.

Download The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Grant press release