Adams Historical Society Annual Meeting
This past weekend we attended the Adams Historical Society Annual Meeting, which took place on the second floor of the historic Adams Public Library.
If you’ve never been to the second floor of the library I heartily recommend it. It was built as a Civil War Memorial and is a beautiful site to behold with incredible original details. In fact, take a look at the chairs in the photo above — we were sitting in original chairs that were in fact used by Civil War veterans.
The meeting was led by Historical Society President Eugene Michalenko. After attending to organizational business, members of the Board made presentations from the Society’s collection — from quilts and bridesmaid dresses, to vintage postcards, historic trunks, and pieces made by the American Zylonite Company.
It was a fascinating afternoon and we look forward to working with the Historical Society as part of Networked Realities: (Re)Connecting the Adamses.
- Marianne
CATA's Greatest Hits: 15th Anniversary Performance and Gala
Last night we attended the CATA (Community Access to the Arts) 15th Anniversary Performance and Gala at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox.
Community Access to the Arts is a non-profit arts organization that provides over 1,000 visual and performing arts workshops for hundreds of individuals with physical and/or developmental disabilities in the area.
The highlight of the evening was an extraordinary performance filled with singing, juggling, tapdancing, music, movement, and Shakespeare.
Congratulations to all the performers and to everyone at CATA!
- Matt and Marianne
New York Comicon
It was a busy weekend with New York Comic Con.
Highlights included Matt having a lovely chat and getting a signed limited edition print of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from Turtles co-creator and North Adams native Peter Laird, and Marianne moderating a panel of Scott McCloud and Douglas Rushkoff.
For more information re: Comic Con visit the New York Comic Con website.
- Marianne
Thanks, John Mitchell!
We want to thank John Mitchell of the North Adams Transcript for writing such a lovely profile about us and Greylock Arts in yesterday’s Transcript.
We always read his column (and his blog!) and it really is an honor to have him write a piece about us. Thank you!
If you haven’t seen it, here is a link to the full article in The North Adams Transcript.
And, if you haven’t seen John and Jana’s work, you really should check out Shuffleboil.com.
- Marianne
First Annual ROBOFEST NYC
We participated in Vision Ed Inc’s first annual ROBOFEST, which was a day-long event for youth celebrating the world of creative robotics.
Robofest was a collaboration of Vision, the Sony Wonderlab, with additional sponsorship from MAKE magazine.
The atrium was filled with robotic wonders at the Young Inventors Expo, and then teams took the stage for the Dancing with the Robostars competition.
It was a pretty amazing day. Congratulations to Vision Ed. Inc. and thanks to our friends at Sony Wonderlab and MAKE Magazine for making it happen!
-Marianne
Programmable Media II
Our friends at Turbulence, in collaboration with the Pace Digital Gallery, sponsored a one day symposium examining the current and future possibilities of network-enabled music.
Based on the rapidly expanding archive of music and sound experiments to be found on the Networked_Music_Review and the fifteen short works recently commissioned, the symposium aimed to stimulate critical discussion on emerging art and sound art practice.
I was only able to attend the first half of the program (which was also broadcast into Second Life) but sat in a fascinating round table discussion with artists: Peter Traub who presented his MySpace based work, ITSpace; Dan Trueman of PLOrk, the Princeton Laptop Orchestra; Sawako Kato, creator of 2.4GHz Space; Zach Layton, creator of the Network Sonification Project; and Jason Freeman, whose Graph Theory work is currently featured in our Turbulent Works exhibit.
It was a fascinating discussion, and I was sorry to miss the afternoon’s roundtable, which included LoVid, Tobias van Veen, and Adam Nash.
I definitely plan on spending time at all their sound works online.
-Marianne
6,000,000 Memories
Our storefront windows will feature the artwork and poetry of many students from the Housatonic Academy for the next couple weeks. The work, a product of historic research, assignments, and discussions by the students reflects on the 6,000,000 Jewish people killed in World War II by the Nazis. The students have a goal of collecting 6 million pennies to honor victims of the Holocaust. Money raised will fund a trip to Washington, D.C., to see the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. For more information, or to make a donation call The Housatonic Academy at 413-499-7924, ext. 133.
-Matt
Mixed Realities: An International Networked Art Exhibition
Last night we attended the opening reception of an exciting networked art exhibit at the Huret & Spector Gallery at Emerson College in Boston. Mixed Realities, as the exhibit is called, features works curated by Jo-Anne Green and commissioned by Turbulence with funds from the Warhol Foundation. Included works merge real and virtual worlds to produce new environments where physical and digital objects can co-exist and interact in real-time. Mixed Realities links and overlays the Huret & Spector Gallery (Boston), Turbulence.org, and Ars Virtua (Second Life).
Included Artists / Works:
CATERWAUL
by Pierre Proske, with technical assistance from Artem Baguinski and Brigit Lichtenegger
Imaging Beijing
by John (Craig) Freeman
NO MATTER
by Scott Kildall and Victoria Scott
Remote
by Neill Donaldson, Usman Haque, Ai Hasegawa, Georg Tremmel
The Vitruvian World
by Michael Takeo Magruder, Drew Baker and David Steele
-Matt
Todd Holoubek Shows Students From St. Stan's His Work
Students from St. Stan’s made a visit to Greylock Arts for a sneak preview of Artist Todd Holoubek‘s new exhibit Everybody Wins (Hoora!, Hoora!, Hoora!). Todd took the students through each of the pieces in his solo exhibit, explaining his motives for each one. Then the students where encouraged to explore and interact with the show on their own.
The opening reception followed a few hours later. Thanks to everyone who stopped by!
-Matt
The Community Gallery at Net Beans Cafe
Greylock Arts welcomes a new art venue and cafe to Adams. Located at 43 Park St. Net Beans features a warm environment for coffee, tea, a small treat, and a good conversation. WiFi internet access is available to customers and computers are available for rental. Colorfully bold floral paintings by Joanna Gabler and wistful photographs of rusty industrial equipment by Michael Miller adorn the walls at this time. Future shows will be curated by Richard Harrington, an artist we will be featuring in an upcoming exhibit of our own. The gallery currently has an open call to artists interested in showing their work in the space. We wish Net Beans the best of luck, and look forward to their upcoming exhibits. It’s great to have another active presence in the growing arts community here in the northern Berkshires.
-Matt
ITP 2007 Winter Show
I recently attended the New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, Interactive Telecommunications Program’s 2007 Winter Show. ITP shows are always a wildly mixed bag consisting of physical computing projects, networked objects, assistive technology devices, live 3-D, audio, and video manipulation, sustainable energy practice, social and participatory media, and that’s really just scratching the surface. Pictured above artist Rory Nugent (left) demonstrates his work, Electronic Copy (Infrared Detector Cloud). For a detailed account of some of the show highlights read my article on Berkshire Fine Arts.
-Matt
CommentTurbulence Needs Your Support
Turbulence, a project of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (NRPA), is dedicated to supporting artists working with emerging technologies. Not only is Turbulence a generous supporter of Greylock Arts, but they have commissioned and exhibited over 120 works of art using radio, the internet, cell phones, and other network technologies over the past 11 years on their website. Turbulence works have been included in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Biennial (‘00, ’02, ’04), and its Bit Streams and Data Dynamics exhibitions; Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea; C-Theory, Cornell University; Ars Electronica, Austria; International Festival of New Cinema and New Media, Montreal; European Media Arts Festival, Germany; and the Sundance Film Festival, among others. Turbulence coordinates Upgrade! Boston, a monthly gathering of new media artists, curators and the public. And they manage the Networked Performance and Networked Music Review blogs. They are an invaluable part of the modern art world. Please consider making a tax deductible donation. No amount is too small.
-Matt
LEDs Are Pretty Opening Reception
Many thanks to the artists and guests for making our LEDs Are Pretty opening reception a very special event.
Above artists Greg Stringer and Minsoo Lee demonstrate Stoneglow.
-Marianne
CommentNorth Adams Open Studios
This was a very busy weekend as we participated in the Second Annual North Adams Open Studios. Our friends at MCLA Gallery 51 invited us to present with them in their Annex Space on Main Street, so we were honored to share a room with artists Sean Riley, Henry Klein, Lauren O’Neil, and David Lachman.
We presented a mix of works. Audio works included Rory Nugent’s Solar Xylophone and Greg Shakar’s Wood Urchin. We were also pleased to showcase Dan Shiffman’s Swarm, animations by Gabe Barcia-Colombo, and some of our own work. Matt presented pieces from both his Metaglyph and Television Programming series, and I finished a new stop motion animation entitled The Helping Hand for the event.
Pictured above is a visitor interacting with Daniel Shiffman’s Swarm. Swarm is an interactive video installation that implements the pattern of flocking birds as a constantly moving brush stroke to paint with pixels what an attached video camera sees.
Little did we know that we would meet hundreds and hundreds of people at Open Studios. We took turns visiting other venues and chatting with other artists. It was inspiring to see so much great art all over the city.
Many thanks to Jonathan, Sean, and Veronica for inviting us to share your space. Thanks for a great time. Also, many thanks to organizer Sharon Carson. It was wonderful to meet so many wonderful people from all over the area.
-Marianne
CommentVisit from St. Stanislaus School
Many thanks to our neighbors from across the street. Sister Jacqueline, two teachers, and twenty-five students from St. Stanislaus School made our Friday afternoon with a wonderful visit.
The Krinkle-o-tron got quite a workout and many photos were taken with the Solar Bikini.
Speaking of the bikini, it is now on its way to South America for a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition photo shoot. Bon voyage!
-Marianne
MCLA Gallery 51's Artmobile
Our friends at MCLA Gallery 51 covered an old Chevy Suburban with paint and collage materials for this year’s Northern Berkshire Fall Foliage Festival Parade (say that 10 times fast). We thought it was so cool we just had to post a picture of it.
Gallery 51 on Main Street in North Adams is the result of a unique collaboration between area business and community leaders, the City of North Adams and the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. Located at 51 Main Street, Gallery 51 is operated by MCLA and features the works of international, national and local artists, including MCLA faculty and students.
What better way to bring art to a community than to drive it down Main Street?
-Matt
CommentMy 2¢ (In Defense of MASS MoCA)
By now I think everyone in northern Berkshire county has heard of the ongoing feud between the museum MASS MoCA and artist Christoph Büchel. And now that the case has been settled by the courts what can anyone possibly add to the mix? Well, here we go…
In a September 16th 2007 article for the New York Times Roberta Smith ranted about MASS MoCA’s behavior. Smith states that MASS MoCA, in opening Büchel’s “Training Ground For Democracy” to the public prematurely, covered in tarp and re-titled “Made At MASS MoCA”, has insulted the artist and damaged the museum’s image in the eyes of the art world and the general public. Smith gives MASS MoCA credit for being the first U.S. institution willing to work with Büchel, but suggests they ultimately bit off more than they could chew. Smith also argues that an artist alone should have the ultimate right to say when a work of art is a work of art.
Smith asserts that “The museum deserves to be scathed” because “by opening this show without his assent, the museum has broken faith with the artist, the public and art itself.” That “what is visible above and below the tarps today is barely the skeleton of a Büchel. It’s just a lot of stuff.” Smith continues “You are reminded of Hollywood, where directors (that is, artists) are routinely denied ‘final cut.’ Of course, Renaissance popes often had final cut too.” Of course this isn’t the first time a work of art has been shown altered or unfinished. Finally Smith drags Robert Rauschenberg into the fray by quoting him in support of her “art isn’t art until the artist says it is” argument. Rauschenberg is an artist with whom (we are reminded in the exhibit “Made At MASS MoCA”) the museum worked successfully with to install his mammoth “2 Furlong Piece”.
While I don’t disagree with Smith and others that the “Made At MASS MoCA” exhibit is ultimately a confused mess. Could they make it any harder to find? Do they want me to see it at all? Why is this guard yelling at me for looking at what I was invited to see?
Smith’s view, however, totally disregards the fact that when an artist accepts support from an outside source in the form of money that artist is then obligated to deliver something in return. In refusing to finish his work Büchel has not only bitten the hand that feeds him (and other artists), he has damaged the system that funds the arts and everyone who appreciates art. Büchel’s display of endless ego has hurt not only MASS MoCA as an institution but the entire region. Individuals and businesses of northern Berkshire county, many of whom support MASS MoCA and their programming, have suffered from a drop in visitors to the area because Büchel’s no-show is a profound disappointment on every level. Will these patrons continue to support the arts when the bad taste of Büchel lingers on their palettes?
Büchel is not a Hollywood director being denied his ‘final cut’ because MASS MoCA has given Büchel every opportunity to come back and complete his unfinished business. Unlike MGM, Universal or Paramount, MASS MoCA is a non-profit institution that relies greatly on public funds to produce and display art. There are limits to MASS MoCA’s resources and to their ability to accept a loss. Should they sink themselves so that one unreasonable man can have his way? Hollywood studios are self-sufficient commercial entities capable of accepting an occasional loss, and I might add, rarely do they make valuable art. Even if no public funds were used to produce “Training Ground For Democracy” MASS MoCA invested in Büchel, and he owes them a finished work of art.
Coppola remarked of the famously bad “Apocalypse Now” shoot, “We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane.” Büchel is no Coppola though because ultimately Büchel was not personally invested enough in is own work to get it done. Even if “Apocalypse Now” had tanked at the box office, at least Coppola delivered something to the studio. If Büchel was as truly committed to finishing “Traning Ground For Democracy” as artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude where to completing their massive art project, “The Gates”, Büchel would have found the necessary money to buy his bombed out 737 and complete his grand scheme. Surely if Christo and Jeanne-Claude can raise $20 million for “The Gates”, Büchel can beg, borrow or steal a few grand to complete his grocery list.
Any reasonable person recognizes that when you collaborate with an outside entity the work that is generated will inevitably be a compromise. If Büchel’s visions exceeded what MASS MoCA was able to provide and he could not find areas of compromise in his art then he must either raise the additional funds himself or in the future work completely within his own means. Büchel must also recognize that when you spend money to create on this scale the end result is business as much as art. Just ask any Hollywood director.
Until Büchel proves he is truly committed to finishing this project one way or another, and that this isn’t just another of his stunts against the art establishment, then he isn’t (in my eyes) entitled to say “my art isn’t finished until I say it is.” And until Büchel steps forward to complete his work it will remain “not even art, but simply a compilation of materials” as MASS MoCA contends in their lawsuit. A better fit for a landfill than an art gallery. It’s time to stop blaming MASS MoCA for the failings of an artist to pull it together. MASS MoCA has simply asked the court to provide a way out of this stalemate.
-Matt
CommentSustainable Energy
Thanks to the artists and guests for making our Sustainable Energy Art opening a very special night. It’s so great to be visited by people both young and old (rather, young at heart), those from our neighborhood and those from the greater Berkshire County arts community.
Energy problems and sustainable energy practices are at the front of issues that we face as a society and it only makes sense that these topics find their way into our art. Maybe Adams, MA will find itself at the front of a movement to promote sustainable energy practices through the arts. Pictured above is artist Rory Nugent showing his Solar Xylophone to Caryn Heilman and Nana Simopoulos. Caryn and Nana run the newly opened Topia Inn, a completely natural and green inn, located just blocks away from Greylock Arts.
-Matt
CommentGreylock Arts Meets BArT
Students from the Berkshire Arts & Technology Charter Public School (BArT) stopped by today to experience Greg Shakar’s exhibit Moodvectors. BArT is a tuition-free, college-preparatory public school for middle and high school students in Northern Berkshire County.
The students had many thoughtful questions about Greg’s work as they engaged with his musical sculptures and sound installations.
Thanks so much for being a part of our first exhibit. We look forward to collaborating with BArT in the future to help enrich BArT’s students’ appreciation and understanding of technology art and art making techniques.
-Matt
A Visit From Turbulence
Last weekend we were honored to be visited by Helen Thorington and Jo-Anne Green, co-directors of Turbulence, an organization committed to supporting and commissioning net art.
Not only did they bring their smiles, but a huge gift basket from Trader Joe’s (thanks!). We dragged them to 2 art openings and 7 plays (no lie), to which they asked if every weekend was like this out here in Berkshire County.
The work that Helen and Jo do is so important we can’t even put it into words. 11 years ago Helen recognized the need to nurture, and provide a place for network art to exist, at a time when most people didn’t even know art could exist online. If you are unfamiliar with Turbulence, or net art for that matter, do yourself a favor and lose a day on their website.
We at Greylock Arts look forward to collaborating with Helen and Jo on many projects that exploit both the possibilities of the internet and of our gallery’s physical space.
-Matt