In May 2015, Melissa G. Post joined the team of FERRIN CONTEMPORARY and CYNTHIA-REEVES at their shared gallery space on the campus of MASS MoCA in North Adams, located at 1315 MASS MoCA Way. As director, Post will be managing the galleries and expanding their presence through education, public relations, sales, and marketing in the galleries.
Networks, Maps, and Territories features paintings inspired by the Daniel Kohn’s inquiry into genomics, which he pursued for ten years at the Broad Institute of MIT/Harvard in Cambridge, MA. These paintings build on the investigation of genomics to explore the world of the network — a prime lens in contemporary science — and evoke, by extension, the organically occurring manifestations of fractals in our natural world.
“The gradual re-inhabitation of this noble complex of mill buildings has been an organic process, interweaving art from afar with homegrown projects, layering galleries, stages, and art fabrication facilities into the existing physical fabric in ways that preserve the site’s very special sense of place, while also being useful, direct, and practical,” notes MASS MoCA’s Founding Director, Joseph Thompson.
MASS MoCA’s exciting expansion plans were announced in major media publications this week. Featured in The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post, MASS MoCA announced an expansion that is expected to be complete by 2017.
“When the roughly $55 million project is completed in 2017, Mass MoCA will be the largest contemporary art museum in the country, with more than 250,000 square feet of gallery space.” – The Washington Post
Some of the cavernous spaces on the sprawling campus of Mass MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) have remained unused since the museum opened the facility in 1999. Museum director Joseph C. Thompson told the press, “We just love being able to reorient people all the time. Here’s where you are. You’re in a mill. You’re in North Adams. You’re in the Berkshires.” – The Boston Globe
Independent Art Projects (IAP) opened this summer in Building 13 on the MASS MoCA campus with trained staff from MCLA’s Berkshire Hills Internship Program (BHIP), and will clearly benefit from the continued expansions of MASS MoCA and The Clark. Leslie Ferrin, co-founder of IAP also noted “With MCLA and Williams College nearby it is important to also note the combination of education and support, from programs such as Assets for Artists that combined are creatively making it all come together for creative economy.”
Quietly, and often overlooked by some of its closest neighbors, MASS MoCA continues to break new ground, drawing the attention of the nation and the world of this quiet corner of Massachusetts, and setting the stage for the future of the creative economy of North Adams and the Berkshires, if stakeholders will only step up and do their part.
“In 2016, 20 years after this ambitious and at times daunting renovation project got underway, Mass MoCA will be poised for a bright future, to the benefit of its host city and the Berkshires.” – MASS MoCA’s Final Stage, The Berkshire Eagle
We are pleased to be part of that team and enjoy the benefit of being located in the heart of it.
Congratulations MASS MoCA!
[Image: Joseph C. Thompson in front of the soon-to-be-restored Building 6 on the North Adams campus.