The Space Between

Industrial stairwells, covered bridges, and sunlit niches: MASS MoCA is made up not only of vast exhibition spaces but also the nooks and crannies between them. These spaces lie between one destination and the next, and are found by chance as visitors wander the museum. Patrons typically do not stop or linger in these places, but rather pass through on the way from gallery to gallery.

The Space Between disperses installations by seven artists in interstitial or transitional spaces throughout the campus and beyond to investigate ways to actively inhabit this state of “just passing through.” Individually, these interventions — which vary in form from sculpture and photography to sound and concrete poetry — both chart and transform their locations. Together, they form a constellation of yet-unconnected dots.

Amalia Pica, Stabile (with confetti) (detail), 2012
Confetti, Scotch tape, dimensions variable, collection: Andrew Ong and George Robertson
Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Gunnar Meier

Zarouhie Abdalian’s sound installation guides visitors along a service road with an incantation of words referencing the labor that persists within the historical and present lives of the factory-turned-museum.

Rachel Sussman references the Japanese tradition of visible ceramic joinery to repair fissures in the pavement outside the museum with golden filling, drawing attention to wear and tear while reminding us that the space is more beautiful for having been lived in.

A new sound work by Andy Graydon fills an enclosed stairwell between two buildings with the sound of contested proposals for works of art to fill the space.  

Amalia Pica presents a flurry of confetti affixed to the floor with tape, capturing and inviting us to enter an ephemeral moment in time and refocusing attention on the physical evidence of our social bonds.

The glass sculptures of Walead Beshty are sent via FedEx between locations, retaining evidence of their travels in their fractured surfaces and through the accumulation of shipping labels and scuffmarks on their original packing boxes, with which they are displayed.

Audra Wolowiec, Private Space in a Public Time (detail), 2012
Courtesy of the artist

Audra Wolowiec works within gaps in language itself, removing the vowels from an essay by artist Vito Acconci. She uses the deconstructed text as a score for a subtle sound piece that follows the viewer along a passageway between buildings, making audible the ordinarily imperceptible space between words.

Beyond the campus of the museum, two photographs of found objects by Edson Chagas are installed side by side on a pair of billboards. The narrow strip of negative space between them allows the images — one taken in London and one in the artist’s hometown of Luanda, Angola — to testify to both the circulation of global commodities and to the differences between urban environments.

It is possible to stumble upon these works by chance. Or, armed with a brochure doubling as a map, visitors are invited to travel through the museum and beyond with heightened awareness, to deliberately explore what they might otherwise ignore, and to consider ways to activate the productive potential that lies in the space between.

Opening Reception
Saturday, April 16, 5–6:30pm
Free to members | $7 not-yet-members
RSVP to rwehry@massmoca.org or 413.664.4481 x8157
Join us up in the club after the reception for a sensational night with nine-piece, Ethio-funk Debo Band at 8pm.

This exhibition is made possible by the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in support of MASS MoCA, the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art, and the Cultural Council of Northern Berkshire, with additional support provided by the Awesome Without Borders chapter of the Awesome Foundation. The exhibition is curated by Nina Wexelblatt, a second-year student in the Williams College Graduate Program.

Rachel Sussman, Test for Sidewalk Kintsukuroi, 2015
Enamel and gold dust on archival pigment print, 8.5 × 11 in.
Courtesy of the artist