![]() I couldn't wait out the woman monopolizing the person at the Information Desk but fortunately the lad and lass at the Museum Store could answer my question. I was a little put off that my membership in the American Alliance of Museums got me no breaks on the entrance fees and that the idea of the AAM was blown off rather gracelessly by the person at the Admissions Desk. And "Eclipse" expressed that idea and more in exquisite form. Yes, we systematically exterminated a species that was so vast in numbers that it defied counting. ![]() While the tree was white against a black background, and the birds separated from it as white forms, across the ceiling the black and white seemed to reverse in a psychedelic or MC Escher kind of way. In a darkened stairwell, passenger pigeons seem to wing out of a tree and across the sky in such vast numbers as to blacken out the sun. My favorite? The video installation called "Eclipse," by Sayler/Morris with Elizabeth Kolbert. Kinda pooped out so took a peek at Franz West from a distance and skipped Anselm Kiefer altogether. What a great way to explore contemporary book arts and literary aspects of contemporary art. ![]() If we had had more time I would have simply sat and found the tent that was, in Castanedian terms, "my place." Loved Biblioteca. (I got sufficiently confused that we missed the first floor, the early work, entirely and I didn't realize it until we were in the car and nearly out of North Adams.) The Francesco Clemente installation, "Encampment" was sensuous and moving. As has been pointed out, the three floors of Sol Lewitt are simply spectacular. As much as I wanted to come and see, years rolled by before I have the time and could arranged to be in these here parts. I had watched from afar as various groups took on the planning process and then listened to the arguments over how to install art and what kind of art to install. I saw a small group that included a person in a wheelchair and I barely restrained myself from going over and asking how they heck they were navigating around the buildings and getting to see all the different galleries. But as a former museum educator and a geezer with declining personal mobility, I think a lot about accessibility and "accessible" is not a word I would use to describe Mass MoCA. Upstairs, downstairs, around corners, on ramps, on mezzanines, into elevators, too much "you can't get there from here." Now don't get me wrong, I had a terrific time. This campus is straight of of Rube Goldberg.
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