Join fellow museum members, MASS MoCA curators, friends from the community, and the artists to celebrate the opening of Spatial Poems and Michael E. Smith.

Spatial Poems is a communal exhibition in three concurrent parts developed by Curatorial Exchange Initiative Fellow Marissa Del Toro in collaboration with guest curators Ninabah Winton and Jamillah Hinson. The exhibition features the work of artists Cecilia Vicuña, Lola Ayisha Ogbara, and Sam Frésquez. Together, the exhibitions can be understood as a score or spatial poem, created by curators and artists working in a euphonious rhythm. Spatial Poems inspires a dialogue on care, social relations, and the organization of new forms of being and processes as an act of refusal to the current precaritization of the art world. Learn more.

Using familiar objects, artist Michael E. Smith creates installations that thrum with unexpected energy. Drained fish tanks, plaster-filled basketballs, and unplugged scanners exert a new – or previously unseen – sense of alertness, even swagger, in their novel conditions. Retooling objects that remain, in the artist’s words, “stubbornly themselves,” such as a piece of furniture or article of clothing, Smith tests the way that materials interact and react when placed together. He handles the shared materials of our lives with sensitivity, often coupling disparate objects in the hopes that they will be reunited with their other halves. Diverting them from their future as waste, Smith also taps into their resilience. Learn more.

Not yet a member? Join now to attend the opening celebration at no cost with advance registration. MASS MoCA members enjoy free museum admission, ticketing discounts, invites, and more.

Spatial Poems is part of MASS MoCA’s Curatorial Exchange Initiative (CEI). The CEI is generously supported through leadership gifts from Sarah Arison and the Arison Arts Foundation, Michi Jigarjian, Denise Sobel, the Teiger Foundation, and Yukiko and Anders Schroeder. Additional support is provided by the MASS MoCA Director’s Catalyst Fund, with generous contributions from Greg and Anne Avis, Kelly and Bill Kaiser, Steve and Lisa Jenks, Bob Gold, and an anonymous donor.

Michael E. Smith is made possible by the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in support of MASS MoCA and the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art. Support for this exhibition is provided by the Rosen Family Fund and Kathy & Brian Schultz, in memory of Billy Poveda.