Evren Durham ’30
Contributing Writer
Have you ever walked into the Cornelia Center and seen the giant colorful blobs that adorn one of the walls? Well, if you have, you may know that that piece is Sol LeWitt’s “Wall Drawing #849: Irregular Blobs of Color, 1998,” so calling them “giant colorful blobs” is actually not too far off from their given name. Presumably, like most people, I did not know this information, but I had seen that wall. This piece is absolutely one of its kind (according to the article online about it) but honestly, I had never taken much interest in it before my recent trip to Mass MoCA.
Mass MoCA, or the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, is located in North Adams, Massachusetts and I was doubting why I had chosen to go when it was 10:45 a.m. on a Saturday and I was piling onto a bus for a 2 hour ride for an optional InterArts trip. The ride there, though, already had me changing my tune as we drove through the picturesque New England fall. Then, when we arrived, I knew this museum was going to be worth the wake up call.
Housed in an old textile factory, Mass MoCA consists of multiple buildings and the outside space surrounding them. Each and every corner I turned, the place seemed to get larger and the art seemed to surround me fully and completely. We began outside of the main buildings that comprise Mass MoCA where we saw an old building that had been turned into a soundscape area and when we reached the top floor, there was a balcony area. Attached was an old van that had been decorated as if it had become the home of someone after the apocalypse struck. Stepping into it was creepy, disconcerting, odd and kind of magical as I partially expected to find a man living there with the ways the floors were worn in and books were scattered about.
I thought that was going to be the oddest, coolest thing in that museum, but I could not have been more wrong. I will admit, I would never have called myself a fan of contemporary art before this museum. Don’t get me wrong, I think people should express themselves however they want, but the idea of a banana taped to a wall just has never called to me. Now, I’m a fan of contemporary art. I only spent a few hours there, but during that time, I walked in a hallway with lights strung up to mimic the milky way, went into a room that was truly pitch black (would not recommend doing that alone, that was scarier than any haunted house I have ever been in), saw a room with a smaller room in it with a smaller room in it with a smaller room in it until the room got so small you couldn’t really see it, listened as my voice echoed around me in a concrete pipe, played a giant trapezoid shaped string instrument called a trapezoidalmonochord (along with many other interesting instruments) and I sat on a slumpie to scroll on my phone as that is what the slumpie is designed for. And that was still not even half the stuff the museum had to offer.
One of the art pieces involved walls covered with drawings, shapes and colors; the artist’s name, Sol LeWitt, rang a bell to me, but I couldn’t remember why. When I got back to campus, I talked about this museum, all of it. Sol LeWitt and his walls full of shapes and colors came up. Only then did I learn we had a piece of his right here on campus. The wall full of giant colorful blobs is art, intentionally, and it’s Sol LeWitt’s piece. The next time I was in the Cornelia Center I really looked at it and not just because I knew I was writing this article. It made me want to go back to Mass MoCA: something about being in that place, seeing the art and being in that old factory made me begin to notice all the art that exists in even the most unlikely of places, including 114 Vernon Street.
So, with all that being said, I strongly suggest you go to Mass MoCA. If you really like those giant colorful blobs there are walls full of art like it. If you don’t like those giant colorful blobs there is art completely unlike them. Even if you feel completely impartial to any of this there is art you will like. I truly do think Mass MoCA has art for everyone. I know I will certainly be making that trip again.