MOCA announces coming season

Saturday September 8, 2012

NORTH ADAMS -- For a second consecutive year, the fall season at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art will open with a bluegrass festival.

The FreshGrass Festival, which runs from Sept. 21-23, will feature performers including David Grisman Bluegrass Experience, Tony Rice, Carolina Chocolate Drops and Trampled by Turtles.

"We really enjoyed having the festival last year. It went well, and we wanted to give it another shot and give it some more vitamins," Sue Killam, managing director of performing arts at Mass MoCA, said Friday.

While last year's festival was a day and a half, this year's will run for two and a half days, she said. It will also include workshops coordinated with the Berklee College of Music in Boston, she said.

"It's terrific to be able to tie in with the school. They take this genre of music really seriously," she said.

Two artist installations will highlight the fall season beginning in October with "Jerry's Map: A Half Century of Imagination." The work features a map that was first started in 1963 by Jerry Gretzinger with a doodle of an imaginary town. The map covers 2,000 square feet and contains over 2,600 hand-drawn panels.

Oct. 5-14 will be the first time that the map will be displayed in its entirety.

Killam said for the two weeks that the map will be on display in the Hunter Center, Gretzinger will have his studio set up in the same area.

"The audience will be

able to see the map and interact with the artist, as well as a filmmaker who is making a documentary on him," she said. The documentary film about Gretzinger is being made by Greg Whitmore.

The second installation, which will open on Dec. 8 in the Building 5 Gallery, will feature the newest work of Chinese sensation Xu Bing. The centerpiece of the installation is "Phoenix Project," which consists of two birds fabricated from materials harvested from construction sites in urban China. The birds are each more than 90 feet long.

"A lot of times with Building 5, we commission an artist to do a new work. This is something already existing, and it has barely been displayed," Katherine Myers, director of marking and public relations, said.

The two big sculptures of the installation will be spectacular in the space, and it will be a nice complement to the rest of the museum, she said.

The music line-up for the fall season includes a performance on Oct. 6 by the Bandana Splits followed by Loser's Lounge with a Muppet Music Extravaganza on Oct. 20. English folksinger Laura Marling will perform solo at the Hunter Center on Oct. 26. Ben Perowsky's Moodswing Orchestra will perform in Club B-10 on Nov. 3, and Alsarah and the Nubatones will take the club's stage on Nov. 10.

Nerd Nite on Oct. 13 will bring some comedy to the fall, and the student dance troupe at Williams College will perform LeWitticisms in Mass MoCA's galleries on Nov. 1. Emily Johnson will offer a work-in-progress showing of her newest work on Nov. 16.

The theater component of the fall season will come in December with a staged reading of Tim Crouch's "My Arm" on the first of that month. A work-in-progress showing of "Seagull (Thinking of you)" will follow on Dec. 15. "Seagull (Thinking of you)" is presented by Half Straddle and PS 122. The groups work with, against and beneath Chekhov's "The Seagull."

"I'm really excited about the range and diversity we have coming this fall season," Killam said.

There is something for everybody, and new things that people who are willing take a chance can explore, she said.

Tickets can be purchased at the Mass MoCA box office off Marshall Street from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. any day during the week except Tuesday. Tickets may also be purchased by phone at 413-662-2111 during box office hours, or online at www.massmoca.org.

To reach Meghan Foley, email
mfoley@thetranscript.com.

The essentials

The Mass MoCA fall season at a glance:

Sept. 21-23, daily

FreshGrass Festival

Oct. 5-14, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

‘Jerry's Map: A Half Century of Imagination,' Hunter Center

Oct. 6, 5-7 p.m.

Meet the artist reception, Hunter Center

Oct. 6, 8 p.m.

The Bandana Splits, Club B-10

Oct. 13, 8 p.m.