"Yankee Remix: Nine New Works and a Surprising Collaboration"
2003-05-24 until 2003-04-01
MASS MoCA
North Adams, MA, USA United States of America

MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) exhibits the fruition of on an exciting - if unlikely - collaborative venture with the Boston-based Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA). Yankee Remix: Artists Take On New England features newly commissioned works by nine artists who are shining new light on hidden corners of SPNEA's extensive collection. Artists Rina Banerjee, Ann Hamilton, Martin Kersels, Zoe Leonard, Annette Messager, Manfred Pernice, Huang Yong Ping, Lorna Simpson, and Kennedy & Violich Architects were given the freedom to work with any of the more than one million objects and archival documents -- in any order, in any way -- resulting in surprising insights and striking juxtapositions. In employing these objects in the course of making new art, the artists breathed fresh life into everything from 19th-century copybooks to Victorian trunks, dressmaker forms to straw brooms.

The exhibition concept parallels and amplifies the concept behind MASS MoCA itself. The museum, housed on a restored 19th-century factory campus, is the largest center for contemporary art in the country. Just as MASS MoCA itself reimagines an industrial vernacular site as a lively site of creativity and innovation, Yankee Remix invents new art from objects in SPNEA's remarkably rich and diverse collection of historic artifacts.

The partnership with SPNEA continues MASS MoCA's tradition of collaborating with other arts institutions regionally, nationally, and internationally. From SITE Santa Fe to MAK Vienna in the visual arts, and from contemporary music icons Bang on a Can to Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival and Mabou Mines theater troupe in the performing arts, MASS MoCA has regularly teamed up with a vast spectrum of institutions, organizations, and artist groups to develop and present exceptional contemporary art in all media.

Yankee Remix is co-sponsored by Altria Group, Inc. and The Porches Inn. Yankee Remix is co-organized by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, Boston, Massachusetts, and MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts.

IMAGE:
Ann Hamilton
Untitled, 2003

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for the State of Massachusetts

Other Important Exhibitions in United States