Massachusetts Museum Of Contemporary Art
Museum location & history
Museum location & history
Arnold Print Works
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Exterior of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art
Location:
87 Marshall St., North Adams, Massachusetts
Coordinates:
42425 73659 / 42.70139N 73.11639W / 42.70139; -73.11639Coordinates: 42425 73659 / 42.70139N 73.11639W / 42.70139; -73.11639
Built/Founded:
1872
Architectural style(s):
Italianate Industrial
Governing body:
Private
MPS:
North Adams MRA
Added to NRHP:
October 25, 1985
NRHPReference#:
85003379
Arnold Print Works
The buildings that MASS MoCA now occupies were originally built between 1870-1900 by the company Arnold Print Works. These buildings, however, were not the first to occupy this site. Since colonial times small-scale industries had been located on this strategic peninsular location between the north and south branches of the Hoosic River. In 1860 the Arnold brothers arrived at this site and set up their company with the latest equipment for printing cloth. They began operating in 1862 and quickly took off. Aiding their success were large government contracts to supply cloth for the Union Army.
In December of 1871 a fire swept through Arnold Print Works factory buildings, destroying eight in total. Rebuilding started almost immediately and an expanded complex was finished in 1874. Despite a nationwide depression during the 1870s Arnold Print Works purchased additional land along the Hoosic river and constructed new buildings. By 1900 every building but one in today's Marshall Street complex was constructed.
At its peak in 1905 Arnold print works employed over 3000 workers and was one of the world's leading producers of printed textiles. Arnold produced 580,000 yards or 330 miles of cloth per week. Arnold had offices in New York City and Paris. In addition to printing the textiles, Arnold Print Works expanded and built their own cloth-weaving facilities in order to produce "grey cloth," which was the crude unfinished textile from which printed color cloth was made.
In 1942 Arnold Print Works was forced to close its doors and leave North Adams due to the low prices of cloth produced in the South and abroad, as well as the economic effects of the Great Depression.
Sprague Electric Company
These large factory buildings were not inactive for long. Sprague Electric Company, a local North Adams company, bought the Marshall Street complex to produce capacitors. During World War II Sprague operated around the clock and employed a large workforce of women. Sprague did not employ women just because of the lack of men, but because it took small hands and excellent manual dexterity to construct the small hand-rolled capacitors.
In addition to manufacturing electrical components, Sprague had a large research and development department. "From the 1940s, Sprague physicists, chemists, electrical engineers, and skilled technicians worked with state-of-the-art equipment, investigating practical applications and conducting fundamental research on the nature of electricity and semiconducting materials." This department was responsible for research, design, and manufacturing of the trigger for the atomic bomb and components used in the launch systems for the Gemini moon missions.
At its peak during the 1960s Sprague employed 4,137 workers in a community of 18,000. Essentially the factory was a small city within a city with employees working alongside friends, neighbors and relatives. The company was almost completely self-sufficient holding a radio station, orchestra, vocational school, research library, day-care center, clinic, cooperative grocery store, sports teams, and even a gun club with a shooting range on the campus. The site was formerly listed as a superfund contaminated site. In the 1980s Sprague began to face difficulties with global changes in the electronics industry. Cheaper electronic components were being produced in Asia combined with changes in high-tech electronics forced Sprague to sell and shutdown its factory in 1985. As a result North Adams was left "deindustrialized" and found itself on a steep economic decline.
MASS MoCA
The development of MASS MoCA as a museum institution began just a year after Sprague vacated the factory buildings. In 1986 a group of staff from the nearby Williams College Museum of Art were looking for large factory or mill buildings where they could display and exhibit large works of modern and contemporary art that they weren't able to display in their more traditional museum/gallery setting. They found a large number of vacant factory buildings in North Adams and were directed to the Marshall Street complex by the Mayor of North Adams. It then took a number of years of fund raising and organization to develop MASS MoCA from an idea into a reality. During this process the project evolved to create not only new museum/gallery space to exhibit contemporary art work but also a performing arts venue allowing the museum to run a schedule of visual arts exhibitions as well as performing arts events.
The project was able to begin through funding provided by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The museum was granted $18.6 million after a public/private coalition petitioned the state government to support the project based on its cultural and historical significance and the museum's potential for economic revitalization. In 1999, MASS MoCA opened its doors.
Designed by the Cambridge architecture firm of Bruner Cott & Assoc, it was awarded highest honors by the American Institute of Architects and The National Trust for Historic Preservation. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Exhibitions
Sol LeWitt Wall Drawing Retrospective Exhibition
On November 16, 2008, the museum opened a landmark exhibition of Sol LeWitt wall drawings in partnership with Yale University Art Gallery and Williams College Museum of Art. The exhibition, Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective occupies a 27,000-square-foot (2,500m2) building located at the center of the campus. Over 100 monumental wall drawings and paints conceived by the artist from 1968-2007 will be on view through 2033. Cambridge-based Bruner/Cott & Associates converted the historic mill building and worked with LeWitt to design the gallery space. LeWitt designed the final placement of the drawings before his death in April 2007, and the drawings were installed by a team of draftsmen between April 1 and September 30, 2008. The exhibition was chosen as the "top museum exhibition of 2008" by Time Magazine.
The Knitting Machine
On June 30, 2005, MASS MoCA presented an American sculptural installation by Dave Cole. Cole was in residence at MASS MoCA with his project The Knitting Machine which comprised two excavators specially fitted with massive 20' knitting needles. The knitting project was expected to be completed by July 3. The product of The Knitting Machine is an oversized American flag - a flag which can be seen as both a celebratory gesture of pride and a commentary on America's role in world affairs.
When the flag was removed from The Knitting Machine it was folded into the traditional flag triangle and was on display in a presentation case which Cole described as "slightly smaller than a Volkswagen Beetle", accompanied by the 20' knitting needles, and a video of the knitting process. .
Building 5 Exhibitions
Robert Rauschenberg
Tim Hawkinson
Robert Wilson
Ann Hamilton
Cai Guo Qiang
Carsten Hller
Christoph Bchel's installation
In May 2007, the museum became embroiled in a legal dispute with Swiss installation artist Christoph Bchel. The museum had commissioned Mr. Bchel to create a massive new installation, "Training Ground for Democracy," The exhibit was to include a re-built movie theatre, nine shipping containers, a full size Cape Cod-style house, a mobile home, a bus, and a truck, before the artist abandoned the work after the museum balked at changes the artist made to the planned installation..
The museum, which had already invested significantly in the exhibit and had amassed literally tons of materials in its largest gallery, filed a lawsuit to determine its rights and those of artists were in relation to showing or removing the materials. Bchel claimed allowing the public to view it in an unfinished state would misrepresent his work and did not respond to requests by the museum to come and remove the materials. On September 21, 2007, Judge Michael Ponsor of the Federal District Court for Massachusetts, Springfield, ruled that there was no distortion inherent in showing an unfinished work as long as it was clearly labeled as such. Judge Ponsor said that his opinion would likely not be viewed as creating a legal precedent.
Though the museum was granted permission to open the gallery, it chose not to and the materials were discarded without ever being seen by the public.
Jenny Holzer Projections
On November 18, 2007, Jenny Holzer presented her first indoor projection in the United States at Mass MoCA. Previously, an indoor projection had been presented at the MAK, Vienna. Holzer's projection at Mass MoCA filled a large chamber first with selected poems by Nobel laureate Wisawa Szymborska, and later with selections from prose by Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek. Holzer placed expansive beanbags around the floor of the chamber, inviting the audience to sit, lie, and bathe in the light of the work. Holzer's installation immediately followed, and took place in the same space as, the Bchel installation.
Simon Starling
Simon Starling's The Nanjing Particles opened in December 2008. As a conceptual artist Starling places a great deal of importance in the process of art making and an overall concept or idea uniting the piece. When he came to MASS MoCA he did a bit of research about the museum's factory buildings and North Adam's history. In doing so he found a small stereoscopic photograph depicting a large group of men in front of a factory building. It turns out that the building depicted was the Sampson Shoe Factory and the large group of men were about a hundred or so Chinese workers who Sampson had brought east from California in order to break a strike. As a result North Adams had the largest population of Chinese workers this side of the Mississippi. Starling's work typically investigates manufacturing processes and labor. His next step was to view the stereograph image underneath a one million volt electron microscope, allowing him to see individual metal particles that comprise the photograph and allowing that to propel him towards the creation of two large scale sculptures that ultimately were manufactured by hand in Nanjing, China.
Iigo Manglano-Ovalle
Opening in December 2009, Iigo Manglano-Ovalle's Gravity is a Force to be Reckoned With opened with an ambitious installation of an upside-down Mies van der Rohe glass house in MASS MoCA's large Building 5 gallery space. The architecture of the house comes from plans made by Mies van der Rohe for his house with four columns or the 50x50 house (1951), that was never realized. Within the house, whose furniture defy gravity sitting firmly on the floor that is the ceiling, there is evidence of an occupant who has been up to something. The setting is a reference to one of the first science fiction novels written in the 1920s by Yevgeny Zamyatin entitled We(1921). Additionally, this sculptural installation references a 1930s film by Sergei Eisenstein, The Glass House, that was never produced and was based on Zamyatin's novel. Accompanying the house is a film, titled Always After (The Glass House) (2006), that might answer some questions about the house or just raise even more. The film was created at Crown Hall, Mies van der Rohe's 1950 School of Architecture building on the Illinois Institute of Technology campus in Chicago.
References
^ Dobrzynski, Judith H. (May 30, 1999). "Massachusetts Home for Contemporary Art". NYTimes.com. New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=travel&res=9F02E3DD1331F933A05756C0A96F958260. Retrieved 2007-09-20.
^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2009-03-13. http://www.nr.nps.gov/.
^ Trainer, p. 9
^ Trainer, p. 9
^ Trainer, p. 10
^ Trainer, p. 11
^
^ Trainer, p.11
^ Trainer, p. 12
^ "Bruner/Cott Award". brunercott.com. http://www.brunercott.com/bca2006/pages/awards.html. Retrieved 2007-09-20.
^ "Press Release: Site History". massmoca.org. http://www.massmoca.org/press_releases/background/Site_History.html. Retrieved 2007-09-20.
^ Smee, Sebastian (November 16, 2008). "In vast LeWitt show, absurdity and beauty". Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2008/11/16/in_vast_lewitt_show_absurdity_and_beauty/. Retrieved 2008-12-09.
^ Lacayo, Richard. "Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective". 2008 Top Ten Museum Exhibits. Time Magazine. http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/top10/article/0,30583,1855948_1863352_1863353,00.html. Retrieved 2008-12-09.
^ Smith, Roberta (September 16, 2007). "Is It Art Yet? And Who Decides?". NYTimes.com. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/arts/design/16robe.html. Retrieved 2007-09-20.
^ Johnson, Ken (July 1, 2007). "No admittance: Mass MoCA has mishandled disputed art installation". Boston.com. Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2007/07/01/no_admittance/. Retrieved 2007-09-20.
Bibliography
Trainer, Jennifer ed. MASS MoCA: From Mill to Museum. North Adams:MASS MoCA Publications, 2000.
External links
Mass MoCA website
vde
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Keeper of the Register History of the National Register of Historic Places Property types Historic district Contributing property
List of entries
National Park Service National Historic Landmarks NationalBattlefields NationalHistoricSites NationalHistoricalParks NationalMemorials NationalMonuments
Categories: North Adams, Massachusetts | 1999 establishments | Contemporary art galleries | National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts | Museums in Berkshire County, Massachusetts | Art museums in Massachusetts
by: gaga
Chuck Hughes The Man The Key to a Nonstop Conversation Now Lies in Your Hands Art of Roulette Stimulate Your Emotions to Give her that Amazing Orgasm SkinGenX Launches its Monthly Giveaway Program Perfumes dot bg – the place where rare Fragrances could be found Colon Cleansing Could Save Your Life Zulu - Polygamy Is A Symbol Of Wealth Bathing Salt Recipe - A Simple Way To Make Your Very Own Bath Salt Uk2net Login-Uk2net Zephyr Kitesurf Fvo Fett Verbrennungs Ofen-Fett Verbrennungs Ofen Is It Time To Switch To The Latest Glass TV Stand?