We are heralding the recent arrival of the LeWitt team. We’ve got 24 master artists plus 12 apprentices. The masters — senior and seasoned assistants who worked with the artist before his death in 2007 — include Tomas Ramberg, Nikolai Angelov, Takeshi Anita, Michael Vedder, Sachiko Cho, Elizabeth Christ, Megan Dyer, Lacey Fekashacey, Gabriel Hurier, Sarah Heinemann, John Hogan, Nick Kozak, Roland Lusk, Hideni Namura, Amy Rashbone, Emily Ripley, Anthony Sansotta, Mio St. Clair, Wim Starkenburg, Andrew Colbert, Chip Allen, Chris Cobb, Nobutu Suga.

Under the direction of Tomas Ramberg and Anthony Sansotta, teams of installers have been created with one of the master artists leading the interns and apprentices. The process of taking LeWitt’s original instructions for a wall drawing through to completion requires great attention to detail, and fosters a strong sense of camaraderie among the installers, who will be in residence through September 2008. In addition to intensive technical instruction, interns will benefit from lessons in art history each week and a behind-the-scenes view of the work of museums. Special gallery tours and seminar sessions will be given by MASS MoCA, Williams College Museum of Art, and the Yale University Art Gallery.

Apprentices, who are recent graduates with studio arts training, and who will be trained extensively in all techniques, are: Emily Arauz from Wellesley College, Sylvia Birns-Swindlehurst from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, Lexie Bouwsma from Hampshire College, Matt Capezzuto from Yale School of Art, Emily Colman from School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (welcome back to Emily who was the marketing intern here last year!), Julia Isenberg from Mt. Holyoke College, Aran Jones from Hampshire College, Heather Jones from Truman University, Sam McCune from Trinity Christian College, Courtney McIlhenney, a North Adams resident, Anna Pickens from Alfred State College, Amanda Sciullo from Savannah College of Art and Design, and Jordan Starr-Bochicchio from University of Southern Florida.

WELCOME ALL. We’re delighted you’re here! Remember April is the cruelest month, but there’s nothing like summer in the Berkshires!

We’re delighted to have more than a dozen artists from The Miss Rockaway Armada in residence working on their installation which will be open to the public starting April 19. Check their blog for photos documenting their search for materials in the unrenovated buildings on the MASS MoCA campus. They’ll offer a FREE performance great for all ages on April 12 too.

Our friends just up the block at MCLA’s Gallery 51 in collaboration with Northern Berkshire Creative Arts are hosting a talk by Director Joe Thompson about the LeWitt’s artistic practice and place in art history; the LeWitt Project which will expand our gallery space by about 30% and be a (practically) permanent installation (well, 25 years); and its impact on North Adams and the Berkshires. The talk is free and open to the public.
Thursday, April 3
6 - 8 PM
MCLA Gallery 51
51 Main St. North Adams, MA

MASS MoCA’s former director of design Doug Bartow (now in his own shop, id29) granted an interview. We know we were his best client ever and we know you should look for him on the podium next year as best actor in a documentary short film (but we hope he loses the goatee before then.)

If you’re interested in the history of MASS MoCA, you may find this enlightening.

If you loved Hamilton’s corpus or if you’re curious about past exhibitions in Building 5, check out this beautiful video on Ann’s site.

We would love to know what you have to say about MASS MoCA. What did you think of the latest exhibition, event or performance? Write a review of anything and everything relating to MASS MoCA and then send it to me at bbishop@massmoca.org. We’ll pick visitor reviews to share on the blog. Please title all e-mails Patron Review and indicate whether we can post your review on our website.

Cheers,

Brittany

We’re part of an exciting tour put together by our friends at the Center for Ecological Technology called the Green Buildings Open House. From 10 AM - 1 PM on Saturday, October 6 you can learn about the 228 photovoltaic panels on the roof of Building 5 at MASS MoCA which produced an average of 1500 kilowatt hours per week in the summer. We’ll also unveil the first part of a new work that we commissioned from artist and all around exceptional guy Michael Oatman in conjunction with the solar project. There’s a puzzle for you to solve — come learn more about it.

And don’t stop your tour with MASS MoCA, the Green Buildings Open House includes private homes and public buildings around the county including Topia Inn just down the road at 10 Pleasant St. in Adams which features the ultimate in purity and ecological friendliness — luxury pampering and near zero carbon impact.

Actually the audio isn’t new, but the fact that its available as a podcast is. Quite a few years ago, our very talented friend Larry Smallwood created this tour of MASS MoCA’s architecture and long term installations. You can hear architects Simeon Bruner and Henry Moss of Bruner/Cott & Associates talk about the elements they considered as they approached the renovation of these 100+ year old mill buildings and about the history of mills in New England. You can also learn about the history of this site and about Natalie Jeremijenko’s Tree Logic and Christina Kubisch’s Clocktower Project. And, you can learn about how MASS MoCA has helped to create change in North Adams.

Click here to download the podcast.

Don’t own an mp3 player? You can rent a player loaded with the tour from MASS MoCA box office at your next visit.

Coming soon…. Spencer Finch podcast tour.