For Immediate Release
14 August 2019
Contact: Jodi Joseph
Director of Communications
413.664.4481 x8113
jjoseph@massmoca.org
Time of Now: A weekend of thought and performance features Kimbra in concert with Emily Wells, and events with exhibiting artists Cauleen Smith, ERRE, MPA, Rafa Esparza, Gustave Blache III, and more (including a parade!)
FreshGrass Festival and Kronos Quartet celebrate Pete Seeger with a lineup that includes headline performances from Calexico and Iron & Wine, Mavis Staples, Greensky Bluegrass, Andrew Bird, Leftover Salmon, FreshGrass artist-in-residence Aoife O’Donovan, and more than 50 bands in all
Artist Ledelle Moe fills MASS MoCA’s largest gallery with colossal fallen monuments; a massive cross-section of Jenny Holzer’s groundbreaking early work and new work by ERRE and Sarah Oppenheimer fills the galleries
NORTH ADAMS, MASSACHUSETTS — Are you paying attention now? This fall, MASS MoCA asks you to. Welcome autumn on September 20-22 with a weekend overflowing with live music on stage, in the galleries, and every other darn place we can reckon, in the 9th and best-yet edition of the FreshGrass Festival. One-woman musical force nature Orion Sun plays up in the club on October 19; female-fronted Americana-infused jazz captivates with Parlour Games on October 26; riveting music and theater from Liberian Girl in Brooklyn on November 9; High Mud Comedy Fest presents Becca Blackwell on November 23; and on October 26 celebrate new exhibitions from Jenny Holzer, ERRE, and Sarah Oppenheimer. Ledelle Moe’s monumental cast-concrete sculptures fill Building 5, on view beginning December 14.
Extended museum hours keep the galleries open every day from 10am to 6pm through October 14. Beginning October 15, MASS MoCA galleries are open Wednesdays through Mondays, with newly extended hours of 10am-5pm. Every admission to MASS MoCA is good for two consecutive days. You’ll need it.
In the galleries
ERRE (as in the
rolled “r” of Spanish) has been addressing the Mexico-U.S. border in his work
for over three decades, examining its oft-forgotten history, shifting contours,
and its fraught social, economic, and geopolitical history. ERRE brings to MASS MoCA a palpable
manifestation of the existing barrier that is a part of daily life in the
border region and a part of regular negotiations of identity, dividing people
between this country and that, documented and undocumented — i.e. “US” and
“THEM”, now on view.
ERRE (como en la letra “r”) ha estado
abordando la frontera en su trabajo durante más de tres décadas, examinando su
historia, a menudo olvidada, cambiando los contornos y sus implicaciones
sociales, económicas y políticas. ERREaporta a MASS MoCA una imagen
palpable de la barrera existente que forma parte de la vida cotidiana en la
región fronteriza y la cual es parte de las constantes negociaciones de
identidad, que dividen a las personas entre este país y aquel, documentadas e
indocumentadas, es decir, “NOSOTROS” y “ELLOS”, ahora abierto.
Jenny Holzer updates the cross-sectionof work in her long-term galleries in B6: The Robert Wilson Building. Holzer’s pithy, often enigmatic messages on topics such as capitalism, class, sex, and love infiltrate everyday life in the artists’ benches, LEDs, tea sets, and (yes) condom wrappers. This is the largest presentation of Holzer’s Truisms and Inflammatory Essays assembled in more than a decade.
Sarah Oppenheimer‘s architectural sculpture S-334473 is comprised of two glass and metal structures that rotate at a 45-degree angle. The sculpture, when horizontal, will reflect sightlines through 19th century factory windows and the Hoosic River and, when vertical, will slip deftly between the buildings’ columns, a kind of mobile architectural x-ray device.
With monolithic heads and figures, South African artist Ledelle Moe ruminates on traditional notions of the monument. In her largest exhibition to date, Moe pieces together her imperfect concrete forms to question stereotypical characteristics of classic sculpture. Fallen and scarred, sometimes hollowed out, these colossal works commemorate the anonymous, the vulnerable, and the collective. An opening reception takes place on December 14.
FreshGrass Festival
Pairing the best in bluegrass and roots music with MASS MoCA’s knockout art exhibitions, Greensky Bluegrass, Calexico and Iron & Wine, Andrew Bird, and Mavis Staples headline a FreshGrass bill filled to the brim with more than 50 bands. San Francisco musical genius Kronos Quartet pays tribute to Pete Seeger in a performance of newly arranged Seeger tunes, and through a performance likely to draw musicians from across the FreshGrass lineup. That’s just one of several newly commissioned pieces at the festival — look for film with original live music from Natalie Prass and Aoife O’Donovan, also commissioned by the festival. Throughout the weekend, more than 30 musicians compete in band and instrument competitions called the FreshGrass Awards, an annual festival highlight that distributes more than $30,000 in cash and prizes — and which has launched the careers of serious fresh talent.
Time of Now
Time of Now activates art through performance and talk in a weekend-long, museum-wide direct exchange with artists. Cauleen Smith, ERRE, Rafa Esparza, and MPA ask us to disconnect — and pay attention: to our sociopolitical climate, to technological intervention, and to what it means to be human today. In tune with Time of Now, Cauleen Smith joins North Adams’ annual Fall Foliage Parade on October 6 with a local marching band playing a composition based on Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Wizard of Oz, a color guard waving flags designed by the artists and a trail of vibrant billowing smoke — a celebration and commemoration of people who have suffered under the dehumanization of the modern industrial age. In what is sure to be an ecstatic Time of Now Saturday night finale, New Zealand pop savant Kimbra brings her genre-bending music to the Hunter Center with a main-stage performance designed to help us release the tension of the now. Performing with Emily Wells, Kimbra is ready for the spotlight after co-starring in collaborations with Gotye, David Byrne, and the Roots.
Dance
Ink — the final installation of Jacob’s Pillow Dance award-winning choreographer Camille A. Brown’s trilogy about identity — celebrates the rituals, gestural vocabulary, and traditions that remain ingrained within the lineage of the African Diaspora. Performances are co-presented with Jacob’s Pillow on Saturday, November 2,and Sunday, November 3, at MASS MoCA.
Live Music
In a commanding one-woman tour de force, singer and instrumentalist Orion Sun showcases her carefully crafted songs up in the club on October 19. Two of the foremost instrumentalists of indie jazz, violinist Jenny Scheinman & drummer Allison Miller unite to presentAmericana-infused Parlour Game on October 26. Join theater songwriter and composer Shaina Taub for an intimate evening of musical stylings from the American Songbook on November 16. Brooklyn-based DELSONIDO performsits riotous blend of Caribbean sounds infused with electronica, rock, and jazz on December 7.
Theater
Actor and singer Marcelle Davies-Lashley promises a riveting show on November 9 with Liberian Girl in Brooklyn — a moving snapshot of her family history and West African roots brought to life with music, dance, and storytelling.
Work-in-progress
Visitors get a glimpse into the inner workings of the creative process with two residency programs this fall each concluding with a work-in-progress performance. On October 12, composer Christopher Cerrone presents In a Grove, an opera based on the Japanese short story that inspired Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon. Award-winning choreographer and theater artist David Neumann presents Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed on December 14— a staged conversation on the set of a TV talk show in which Neumann and his long-time creative collaborator Marcella Murray explore dialogues about race alongside astronomical questions of scale and time.
Have a Laugh
On November 23, High Mud Comedy Fest presents They, Themselves and Schmerm by trans actor, performer, and writer Becca Blackwell. Tragic and hilarious, this standup special features personal tales of being adopted by a religious Midwest family and trained to be a girl.
Book Club
BLK FMNST Loaner Libraryfeatures selections from exhibiting artist Cauleen Smith’s paintings of the covers of her recommended must-read texts. Read and discuss Octavia Butler’s 1993 Parable of the Sower — riveting dystopian science fiction set in 2024 LA and told through the eyes of a 15-year-old African-American girl; Christina Sharpe’s highly influential In The Wake: On Blackness and Being — examining the effects of slavery; and posthumously published Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? by Kathleen Collins — exploring race, gender, and sexuality. Book Club sessions are facilitated by Gwendolyn VanSant, Founding Director of Multicultural BRIDGE, a grassroots organization dedicated to advancing equity and justice by promoting cultural competence, positive psychology, and mutual understanding and acceptance.
Artist Talks
On October 8 at Williams College (Lawrence Hall 231), exhibiting artist Cauleen Smith will speak to students and the public at Williams College to discuss her exhibition, We Already Have What We Need. On November 21, Still I Rise exhibiting artist Genevieve Gaignard, whose work focuses on photographic self-portraiture, sculpture, and installation to explore race, femininity, class, and their intersections — discusses her extensive practice in Kidspace at MASS MoCA.
Images
High-resolution images of MASS MoCA’s Fall 2019 events are available through this link: http://bit.ly/2YXjpnO
Evergreen images of MASS MoCA’s campus and programs: bit.ly/2EAhIa2
About MASS MoCA
MASS MoCA is one of the world’s liveliest (and largest) centers for making, showing, and enjoying today’s most important art, music, dance, theater, film, and video. MASS MoCA nearly doubled its gallery space in spring 2017, with artist partnerships that include Laurie Anderson, the Louise Bourgeois Trust, Jenny Holzer, and James Turrell.
Gallery admission is $20 for adults, $18 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. The Hall Art Foundation’s Anselm Kiefer exhibition is seasonal and currently on view. For additional information, call 413.662.2111 x1 or visit massmoca.org.
Hours
Through October 14, 2019, MASS MoCA’s galleries will be open seven days a week, 10am to 6pm. Beginning October 15, MASS MoCA’s galleries will be open Wednesdays through Mondays, from 11am to 5pm (closed Tuesdays). MASS MoCA is closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day and open on January 1.
AT A GLANCE
| Date | Time | Event | Type |
| Sept 20-22 | All weekend | FreshGrass Festival | Music Festival |
| Sept. 26 | 5pm | Book Club: BLK FMNNST Loaner Library Parable of the Sower, 1993 | Book Club |
| Oct. 5-6 | All weekend | Time of Now | Music + Arts Festival |
| Oct. 5 | 8pm | Kimbra in concert with Emily Wells | Live Music |
| Oct. 6 | 1-3pm | Cauleen Smith: H-E-L-L-O…There’s No Place Like Home…Somewhere Over the Rainbow…We Atone | Special Event Downtown North Adams Fall Foliage Parade |
| Oct. 8 | 6pm | Artist Talk: Cauleen Smith | Artist Talk at Williams College, Lawrence Hall 231 |
| Oct. 12 | 8pm | In a Grove | Work-in-progress: Live Music |
| Oct. 19 | 8pm | Orion Sun | Live Music |
| Oct. 26 | 3-5pm | Opening Reception: ERRE, Jenny Holzer, Sarah Oppenheimer | Opening Reception |
| Oct. 26 | 8pm | Jenny Scheinman & Allison Miller’s Parlour Game | Live Music |
| Oct. 29 | 6pm | MASS MoCA in New York City | Benefit |
| Nov. 2 | 8pm | Camille A. Brown and Dancers: Ink | Dance |
| Nov. 3 | 2pm | Camille A. Brown and Dancers: Ink | Dance |
| Nov. 7 | 5pm | Book Club: BLK FMNNST Loaner Library In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, 2016 | Book Club |
| Nov. 9 | 8pm | Liberian Girl in Brooklyn | Theater |
| Nov. 16 | 8pm | Sundance Theatre Lab: Shaina Taub | Live Music |
| Nov. 21 | 5pm | Artist Talk: Genevieve Gaignard | Artist Talk |
| Nov. 23 | 8pm | Becca Blackwell: They, Themselves and Schmerm | Comedy |
| Dec. 5 | 5pm | Book Club: BLK FMNNST Loaner Library Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?, 2016 | Book Club |
| Dec. 7 | 8pm | DELSONIDO | Live Music |
| Dec. 14 | 5:30-7pm | Opening Reception: Ledelle Moe – When | Opening Reception |
| Dec. 14 | 8pm | David Neumann: Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed | Work-in-progress: Theater |