Northampton-based artist Samuel Rowlett and a dynamic crew of 15 local high school students collaborated on The Known Universe at “TEENSPACE� a project of Kidspace at MASS MoCA  in downtown North Adams as part of the annual DownStreet Art festival. Visit the space at 26 Holden Street to see the results.

Samuel Rowlet has written a guest blog for MASS MoCA, check out what he has been working on:

With sketchbooks filled after a month of meeting twice a week on the 3^rd floor of MASS MoCA as part of my residency with the Teenspace crew, we finally saw the space for our installation this summer.  The site of the old Artery Lounge at 26 Holden Street was perfect!   With a patina of character and quirky architectural palimpsests it was just the raw space we needed to take the ethos of the sketchbook (the artist’s equivalent of a diary), blow it up large scale and make it environmental.  The process, based on my own studio practice of turning the unpolished immediacy of sketchbook drawings into wall drawings, certainly gave the project an uncertain future.  Especially having 16 sketchbooks to source from!  However, after seeing the sketches the Crew had made, I knew we had the makings of something great.

Perhaps the most pleasing part of the project (in addition to the rocking installation: a mash-up of social commentary, angst, honesty and satire, that somehow reminds me of a Nirvana music video) has been the camaraderie and sense of collaboration that has developed within the group throughout the installation process.  As we helped draw each other’s drawings, we got to know one another, to rely on one another, riffing off each other’s ideas, and (quite literally) drawing connections between our sketchbook worlds.  I had charged them with the task of mapping their own universes, however it has become less about individual paradigms and more about stewardship of the work as a whole and the conversation they have put into motion through the process of working together.  Which, primarily, is what I hope for them will be the real take-away from this experience.  One that they can repeat in the future in whatever their chosen field may be:  a sense of creative collaboration.  “The Known Universe� expands…

This Saturday, July 2^nd, ReadNex poetry squad will be taking over MASS MoCA’s Courtyard C, bringing an electrifying Hip Hop Dance Party. Just to give you a run-down on who these awesome party-throwers are, ReadNex consists of DJ H20, and four poets, Decora, FreeFlowin, Jarabe Del Sol and Latin Translator. Forming in 2001, the members met during an open-mic night at Middletown’s Orange County Community College, and have continued to jam since then. While focusing on creating verses and beats that revolve around social change, education and confidence, the group matches their message with a thrilling dance party. But that’s not all folks…the group also facilitates workshops for youth empowerment, using hip-hop and poetry to address issues such as race, gender, injustice, and poverty.

Although they have been hitting the road lately (or airplanes for that matter) the group member, FreeFlowin was kind enough to take some time during the squad’s recent tour in London, to answer some questions for us:

MM: Chronogram Magazine described your group as “…an out-and-out activist machine…� Could you talk about your major influences, both musically and in terms of activism?

FF: We are influenced by a variety of sources. Life and experience is our greatest influence. There are too many people to list as far as influences go but to name a few they would have to be: Michael Jackson, Ghandi, Bob Marley, Nina Simone and Audrey Lorde.

MM: I understand that workshops, such as “Hip Hop and Poetry Saved My Life� are a major part of your mission. Was that something the group always wanted to do from the beginning of the formation, and how did these workshops develop over time?

FF: When we formed the group our main goal was to Perform in as many places possible. However, our main goal has been evolving and expanding since the inception of the group. After several years of performing at open mics, clubs and colleges we began to get approached by middle schools and high schools to perform for their youth. These performances later grew into lectures/ open forum discussions and these became the core elements of our workshop.

MM: In your 2010 Chronogram interview, you mentioned one of the elements of Hip Hop is Graffiti; do you combine that artistic genre or other types of visual arts in some of your performances?

FF: We don’t personally create visual art at our performances but we never turn down the opportunity to feature visual artists during our live performances. In fact at as many shows as possible we try to involve as many of the five elements that we can.

MM: During the Hudson Valley Clearwater Festival in 2009, your squad teamed up with Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, American Folk singer Pete Seeger’s grandson, which seems like a unique and inspiring combination. Have you done collaborations like that before or plan to do more in the future?

FF: We love rocking with Tao Seeger and his band and since that show we have performed with them on numerous occasions and he is even on our latest album. Song number 8 America Bolivariana the reflection of Self Revolution is an example if the fusion of genres with Tao Seeger. Interestingly enough that was not the first time we collaborated with folk music. In 2008 we were in Whitesburg Kentucky where we had the honor to jam with some really dope folk musicians. We love all genres of music so any opportunity to perform or collaborate on a project with different artist we jump on it.

MM: For this MASS MoCA event, you will be featuring a Hip Hop dance party; can you give our readers some insight into what they should expect?

FF: They should expect to dance until their legs fall off literally!!!!!

…So, you heard it from the group themselves, get ready to dance all night this Saturday out in one of MASS MoCA’s unique factory courtyards. Tickets are still available, $15 in advance, $19 the day of the show, and only 10 bucks for teens and kids! Doors open at 7, so get here early to get a perfect spot to dance all night.

Curator Susan Cross offers this information about arts fundingin in the Netherlands:

In response to the drastic cuts in government funding of the arts in the Netherlands – a country known for its stalwart support of the arts – artists and arts organizations in the Netherlands and elsewhere are setting off “art bombs’ in protest.

Roma Pas, an Amsterdam-based artist included in MASS MoCA’s Eastern Standard exhibition writes us that alternative art spaces, residency programs, and schools  including De Ateliers, the  Rijksakademie, and Jan van Eyck Academie may be forced to close.

She sent us photos of some art bombs and this video of  artbomb at the rijksakademie

Many of the organizations at risk have petitions on their sites. Show your support:24.06.11

Letter Jan van Eyck – a Defendable Space

This weekend some newspapers are publishing the letter ‘Jan van Eyck – a Defendable Space’. This letter is requesting State Secretary Halbe Zijlstra to withdraw his plans to stop financing post-academic institutes like the Jan van Eyck Academie. The academy is happy to see the letter signed by a long list of names from people within and outside of the academy, from the national and international fields of arts, culture and education. If you want to support the Jan van Eyck Academie, you can sign this letter by sending an e-mail to Judith Lindekens.

A group of Dutch artists placed this in the New York Times in response to funding cuts, advising would-be visitors of the cultural meltdown.

Gregory Euclide who was in the Badlands exhibition here in 2008 just created work for Bon Iver’s new self titled album, which was released on June 21st. Gregory’s work is also featured on the first single off the album called Calgary (a funny naming coincidence given our upcoming Oh, Canada exhibition). Check out the video of Gregory making the piece.

Here’s the low down on Glenn Kotche’s installation for  Solid Sound from our director Joe Thompson:

I caught MASS MoCA staffer Cody Johnson mounting the first of six speakers to be installed down the 100’ long elevated walkway leading from our lobby to the LeWitt building.  The speakers will be used to create a sound sculpture by Wilco’s magical percussionist Glenn Kotche, for the upcoming Solid Sound ’11 festival.

One of the greatest things about Wilco is the way the band’s aesthetic interests cast such a wide wake, parts of which wash up on MASS MoCA’s shores in felicitous ways.

Guitarist Nels Cline (who just released a fantastic new album with alto saxophonist Tim Berne, and drummer Jim Black) for instance, will be joined by Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore in what promises to be a mind-bending set.  Fans who attend the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival here will fondly recall Thurston’s electrifying performance at our 2006 Marathon…which loops me back to Glenn Kotche, who also performs from time to time with Bang on a Can, perhaps not surprisingly, given Glenn’s experimental turn of mind, and his use of intricate, often visually stunning instrumentation. Those of you who attended Solid Sound ‘10 will remember Glenn’s elegant, playable, handiwork placed throughout the LeWitt Wall Drawing Retrospective, which Jeff Tweedy named inGLENNtions.

This year, using the LeWitt walkway as a sort of sonic preamble for the band’s newest (and still unreleased) work, Glenn will orchestrate audio snapshots sampled from the recording process from the band’s upcoming album.  The result of his “fly-on-the-wall� recordings was a rich collection of overdubs, full band tracking, fragments of meal conversations between band members, pinball games and playbacks.   For the LeWitt walkway installation, Glenn selected six of his favorite recording fragments for each of the six speaker locations.

And then, in Glenn’s own words, “I  used the drumbeat that opens the record as a guide for their arrangement – assigning one recording to each voice of the beat.  The rhythms of each voice determine when tracks are audible or muted.  The result is a collage of behind-the-scene mini-clips of our recording work over the past 11 months. Each speaker has a dedicated collage that loops, going in and out of phase with the other 5 speakers over the course of the festival.�

This is one of a half dozen or so Wilco-specific exhibitions that will be installed June 24-26. Look for it when you come to Solid Sound. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that tickets are still available.

In honor of the upcoming 2011 Solid Sound Festival, (just two weeks away) which will be featuring 20 live bands including the one and only Wilco, we have found some of the best Flickr pictures from last year’s festivities. Along with the sweet music; art, comedy and falconry… yes… falconry, will all be in the mix this year. These photos are just a little reminder on what an amazing experience the weekend was in 2010, and definitely an insight into what you can expect this time around.

For those of you who have waited until the last minute to get your tickets, visit Solid Sound now!

Also, for a new addition to this year, MASS MoCA and the City of North Adams have teamed up and created the Solid Ground Tent Site for overnight stay. Camp out within walking distance of the museum, downtown merchants, restaurants, and of course bars at a totally affordable price. Watch and see:

So, if you have no place to stay for this awesome weekend, give our Box Office a call for details and reservations, 413. 662 .2111