ART REVIEW: Material World at MASS MoCA

MASS MoCA
North Adams, Mass.
Material World

 

by Tresca Weinstein

 

Aluminum, rope, paper, plastic, wood, and light are the primary elements of MASS MoCA's "Material World," a collection of seven installations designed with the converted mill space of the museum in mind. Each piece takes up one or more galleries, and they are related not only in scale and in the everyday mediums of which they are constructed, but also in the way they draw the viewer in, both atmospherically—each manifests its own fully imagined world—and physically, inviting us to walk around and inside the work.

 

In the case of Eli Levenstein's Reading Room—a three-dimensional collage of organically shaped objects formed from fabric, bubble wrap, telephone wire, Astroturf, paper clips, and other random materials—the pieces are meant to be rearranged, stacked, and sat upon.

 

The medium is the message in Orly Genger's Big Boss, created with 100 miles of knotted industrial-strength rope. The strands, dyed in many hues of red and in multiple variations of texture, thickness, and weave, form a vast vertical plane that breaks through an adjacent wall and cascades into the next room, forming a roiling landscape, or seascape, of many layers.

 

 

The mysterious environment Wade Kavanaugh and Stephen B. Nguyen have built from paper and wood also transcends boundaries, extending from the second to the third level of the museum—almost as if the twirling, twisting roots and stalactites had worked their way down through the floor and up through the ceiling. Offering hidden caverns to crawl into and hollow trunks to stand inside, peering up toward the circle of soft light at the very top, this pale, lovely forest feels not so much haunted as bound in a benign enchantment.

 

Equally magical are two works in which light is a pivotal ingredient. Alyson Shotz's The Geometry of Light (above left), a hammock of steel wire strung with discs and beads, twinkles and glows like a giantess's bauble, casting patterned shadows on the floor and the brick walls. In the largest gallery, Tobias Putrih's Re-projection uses fishing line and a spotlight to create an evocative optical illusion—is it a city at night? A bridge? The Arc de Triomphe? Actually the curving span of bright pinpoints, which appears to have limitless depth at certain angles and disappears at others, was inspired by the nearly five-mile-long Hoosac Tunnel east of North Adams.

 

Less transporting is Dan Steinhilber's Breathing Room, a balcony area lined in billowing plastic sheeting that inflates and deflates with the movement of air controlled by fans. It's an interesting concept—and a great title—but the air movement is too slow, and it ends up feeling more like a construction site than the interior of something alive.

 

With Lightning Generation, Michael Beutler lets us in on the creative process, exhibiting the homemade assembly line and tools he used to build dozens of aluminum columns that stand in rows against the walls. The title and work reference the gallery's former life as a Sprague Electric lab used for generating electricity with high-voltage capacitators. The piece feels half-done, however; a glimpse of what these columns could be used for might have told the rest of the story.

 

Museum hours: Through June 25, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed Tuesday; June 26 to September 7, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily

Admission: $15; students, $10; children 6 to 16, $5; members and children 5 and under, free