A highly selective preview of cultural events taking place this weekend in the greater Berkshire region, including indie-rock band CAKE; a play about a radical lawyer; 17th-century Dutch painting; a folk-rock jam band; and a whole lot more.
MASS MoCA Building 6
MASS MoCA UNVEILS NEWLY RENOVATED CAMPUS with DAYLONG FESTIVITIES
(NORTH ADAMS, Mass.) — MASS MoCA launches its summer season on Sunday, May 28, with the opening of Building 6, the third phase of campus development that encompasses 130,000 square feet of interior renovations to the museum’s 19th-century mill buildings. The day’s events include unveiling of works by Robert Rauschenberg, Louise Bourgeois, James Turrell, Jenny Holzer, Laurie Anderson, and Gunnar Schonbeck (Bang on a Can), among others; Nick Cave’s Soundsuit Parade; a marching band; live DJ music; welcoming remarks; culminating with a concert by indie-rock band Cake.
BIFF SCREENS ‘THE HAPPY FILM’ at MAHAIWE
(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass.) – In a taste of what’s to come the following weekend, the Berkshire International Film Festival (BIFF) will screen “The Happy Film,” a feature-length documentary about a designer who turns himself into an art project, at the Mahaiwe on Friday, May 26, at 6:30pm. The festival itself takes place at venues in Great Barrington and Pittsfield from June 1 through June 4.
“The Happy Film” is a feature-length documentary in which graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister undergoes a series of self-experiments outlined by popular psychology to test once and for all if it’s possible for a person to have a meaningful impact on his own happiness.
Indie-rock band Cake
INDIE-ROCKERS CAKE CAP OPENING WEEKEND at MASS MoCA
(NORTH ADAMS, Mass.) – Quirky alternative-rock group CAKE caps MASS MoCA’s daylong celebration of its grand reopening in an outdoor concert at Joe’s Field on Sunday, May 28, at 8pm. For a quarter-century the California-based group has been entertaining bands with its horn-fueled, deadpan, eclectic style that draws equally from 1960s garage rock, mariachi music, hip-hop, country, jazz, funk, and world music.
Rusted Root (photo Jason Bone)
FOLK-ROCK JAM-BAND RUSTED ROOT KICKS OFF SUMMER at MAHAIWE
(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass.) — Folk-rock jam band Rusted Root kicks off the summer season at the Mahaiwe with a Memorial Day concert on Monday, May 29, at 7pm. The Pittsburgh, Penn.-based group is known for its sincere, spiritual fusion of acoustic, rock, world, and other styles of music, with a strong percussion section that draws from African, Latin American, and Native American influences.
the Ahn Trio
(HUDSON, N.Y.) – The internationally acclaimed Ahn Trio will perform works by David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, Prince, and others at Club Helsinki Hudson on Sunday, June 11, at 7pm, in the inaugural concert of The Rogovoy Salon, a new music and literary series curated and hosted by cultural journalist and music critic Seth Rogovoy.
The Flying V guitar (courtesy National GUITAR Museum)
GUITAR GETS SPOTLIGHT at BERKSHIRE MUSEUM
(PITTSFIELD, Mass.) – GUITAR: The Instrument That Rocked the World, a fully immersive exhibition exploring all aspects of one of the most enduring musical icons of the last 200 years, opens at the Berkshire Museum on Saturday, May 20, and will be on view through Monday, September 4.
Jeff McCarthy as William Kunstler (photo Carol Rosegg)
‘KUNSTLER’ RECALLS RADICAL LAWYER at BARRINGTON STAGE
(PITTSFIELD, Mass.) – “Kunstler,” a play by Jeffrey Sweet based on the self-described “radical lawyer” and civil rights activist William Kunstler of Chicago Seven fame, is at Barrington Stage Company from Thursday, May 18, through Saturday, June 10, on the St. Germain Stage at the Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center (36 Linden Street).
Directed by Meagan Fay, Kunstler stars BSC veteran Jeff McCarthy (BSC’s Broadway Bounty Hunter, All My Sons, Sweeney Todd) as the title character and Erin Roché (BSC debut) as the whip-smart student who opposes him. The colorful, perpetually rumpled defense lawyer whose best-known clients include the Chicago Seven, inmates involved in the Attica prison riots, and members of the American Indian Movement, makes a case for his often unconventional style in this wise and revealing play.
Fishermen on the Irrawaddy River, Myanmar by Scott Barrow
SCOTT BARROW TURNS LENS on MYANMAR in NEW EXHIBITION
(LENOX, Mass.) – Award-winning photographer Scott Barrow presents “Mystical Myanmar,” a new exhibition of photographs taken on his first visit to Southeast Asia this past winter, at the Scott Barrow Photography Gallery from Saturday, April 15, through Thursday, June 15.
NORMAN ROCKWELL MUSEUM SALUTES SATURDAY MORNING CARTOON TEAM HANNA-BARBERA
(STOCKBRIDGE, Mass.) – “Hanna-Barbera: The Architects of Saturday Morning” features the work of the creative team behind such memorable Saturday morning cartoons as “The Yogi Bear Show,” “The Flintstones,” and the “The Jetsons,” on view at Norman Rockwell Museum through May 29, 2017.
Before the rise of basic cable, Saturday mornings for many children in America were spent watching cartoons on one of three available television channels. From 1958 through the 1980s, a majority of those cartoons bore the imprint of Hanna-Barbera. Creating scores of popular series such as The Yogi Bear Show, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Jonny Quest, and Scooby-Doo, Hanna-Barbera was an animation powerhouse and its bountiful creativity is beloved to this day.
Gabriel Metsu (Dutch, 1629–1667), Public Notary, c. 1653. Oil on panel, 16.14 x 12.8 in (41 x 32.5 cm). The Leiden Collection, N.Y.
17th-CENTURY DUTCH PAINTINGS at THE CLARK
(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.) – An Inner World: 17th-Century Dutch Genre Painting is on view at the Clark Art Institute now through Sunday, September 17. The exhibit brings together paintings from the Clark and The Leiden Collection, among the largest and most important private collections of Dutch Golden Age paintings in the world. The exhibition features seven exceptional genre paintings by Dutch artists working in or near the city of Leiden in the 17th century.
An Inner World explores the work of Gerrit Dou (Dutch, 1613–1675) and his contemporaries by considering tradition and innovation in the representation of figures in interior spaces, individuals in moments of contemplation or quiet exchange, and the enduring taste among collectors for works created by fijnschilders, or fine painters.
Nick Cave, ‘Until’ (detail) (photo Doug Mason)
NICK CAVE’S SITE-SPECIFIC ‘UNTIL’ TAKES OVER MASS MoCA
(NORTH ADAMS, Mass.) — Nick Cave, the artist known for his wearable sculptures called Soundsuits, turns expectations inside out at MASS MoCA in “Until,” a massive immersive installation. Cave uses MASS MoCA’s signature football field-sized space to create his largest and most overtly political installation to date, made up of thousands of found objects, a rich sensory tapestry. The sheer volume of material that has been gathered is astounding — 16,000 wind spinners; millions of plastic pony beads; thousands of ceramic birds, fruits, and animals; 13 gilded pigs; more than 10 miles of crystals; 24 chandeliers; 1 crocodile; and 17 cast-iron lawn jockeys.