A museum that greets visitors with a row of full-size, live, upside-down trees can be counted upon to provide some startling experiences. And people accustomed to taking their history straight can expect to find plenty of surprises at the juncture of history and contemporary art in the exhibition "Yankee Remix: Artists Take On New England," which opens May 24 at MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) in North Adams, Massachusetts. Here, eight internationally known artists will create installation artworks that are inspired by and built around historic artifacts from SPNEA's collections. The artists, who were chosen in part because they have previously created works incorporating "found" or ready-made objects, will apply their highly personal interpretations to SPNEA's artifacts. During the fall and winter the artists each spent residencies at SPNEA to select material. This spring SPNEA will ship the chosen artifacts to North Adams, where the artists will create and install their works in the museum's lofty exhibition galleries. Appropriately, the museum building itself, a brick mill renovated in the late 1990s by Bruner/Cott & Associates, echoes the exhibition's thematic content of "re-mixing" old and new.

SPNEA invites its members to attend the opening and related events and to explore other historic sites in the Berkshires on Memorial Day weekend. Please watch for your invitation with details this spring.

-Ken Turino
Director of Programs & Exhibitions