Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Mass MOCA Visit

I visited Mass MOCA, in North Adams, MA this past weekend. I finally got to see the Sol LeWitt exhibit, as well as a number of other mixed media shows that included fiber. I'm always interested in how fiber is being used in contemporary art.

Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective, on exhibit through 2033. I highly insist that if you can't visit the Museum, that you at the very least carve out some time and visit the website and click on many, if not all, of the links of and about the exhibit. It's wonderful!

Other exhibits we visited:

Petah Coyne: Everything That Rises Must Converge, on exhibit through February 2011. Read Sebastian Smee's review "Living large: Grand installations at Mass MoCA and the Clark take advantage of gallery space to play with illusions of scale" in the June 20, 2010 Boston Globe, and Joel Brown's June 06, 2010 review "Unintended interpretations at MASS MoCA" on hubarts.com.

Material World: Sculpture to Environment, which is on exhibit through February 2011.


Detail of Orly Genger's, Big Boss, rope, paint, 2009–2010


Detail of Alyson Shotz's, The Geometry of Light, plastic Fresnel lens sheets, silvered glass beads, stainless steel wire, 2010


Detail of Dan Steinhilber's, Breathing Room, plastic sheeting, fans, twine, 2010


Detail of Michael Beutler's, Lightning Generation, aluminum, wood, brushes, weights, 2010


Detail of Wade Kavanaugh's & Stephen B. Nguyen's, White Stag, paper, wood, 2009-2010

Also check out Alyson Shotz's The Geometry of Light, plastic Fresnel lens sheets, silvered glass beads, stainless steel wire, 2010, which you can see a picture of on the website. Read the brochure about the exhibit.

InVisible: Art at the Edge of Perception which is closing on July 5th, also has fiber included. I was very interested in Janet Passehl's work. Here is the opening paragraph in the show brochure that talks about her work (and also the other artists):

"Poet and visual artist Janet Passehl creates subtle sculptures out of swaths of cloth. Preoccupied with arrangement and visual balance, the artist employs an intuitive, minimalist approach to art-making through her use of a distilled palette and simple shapes and lines."