Joseph Thompson, director of Mass MoCA in building 6 of the museum (Photo courtesy of Mass MoCA)
Nick Cave? “Spinner Kinetic Forest?” at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, Massachusetts, June 10, 2017 (Credit: Tony Cenicola / The New York Times)
A 2017 view of the construction of a former factory that remained in a component of the Mass MoCA in North Adams. The caravan on the left was an exhibition in itself that had to be arranged to revel first-hand.
Customers one of James Turrell’s light-focused environments? At the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, Massachusetts, June 10, 2017.
Mass MoCA Director Joseph Thompson, left, speaks to Massachusetts Deputy Governor Karyn Polito on Saturday, January 10, 2015 (Photo via Jason Kraus / Special for the Times Union)
NORTH ADAMS – After serving as director of Mass MoCA for more than 3 decades, Joseph Thompson announced Friday that he will resign.
“After more than 3 decades as a director, it’s the best time for me to stay away from the museum’s day-to-day control and focus for next year on transition planning, institutional advancement, and capacity building,” Thompson said in a press release.
Thompson will serve as special adviser to the Board of Directors for the next 12 months, focusing on special projects and the advancement of the institution, as well as finding a new permanent director for the museum. Meanwhile, Tracy Moore will be the acting director starting October 29.
Although the museum has achieved many accomplishments during his reign, Thompson said there are more projects to come.
“The functions of this glorious position and the wonderful other people who paint there are limitless, and the next director will have endless opportunities to advance mass MoCA’s mission,” he said. “We have slightly touched the 17 acres of land, and while we have an exciting and recently designed master plan, two of our most important and strategically located buildings remain to be scheduled and renovated.”
Today, Mass MoCA is one of the largest non-collective arts and the largest museum of fresh art in the United States.
The concept behind moCA first struck Thomas Krens (then director of the Williams College Museum of Art, despite every director of the Guggenheim) in 1985– a giant area for art that did not correspond to traditional museums. Two years later, Times Union independent professional Robert Phelan praised the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art as a “radical” concept, imagining “a museum that is not a pen, which devotes more space to exhibitions than storage, is an environment of life, artists who work.”
When Thompson became director in 1988, he and his colleagues turned Mass MoCA into what it is known to be today, an expanding museum that remodeled a collection of factory buildings in a cultural area that revitalized North Adams, which is approximately an hour’s drive from Albany. They also said they were looking for the museum to be an area that would have large-scale conversion exhibitions and commissions built in particular for and on site.
What’s more, the museum also draws other people for concerts, music festivals, conferences, comedy shows, other public occasions and, with a literal push out, a motorcycle trail that now crosses the basement and connects to North Adams.
Under Thompson’s direction, Mass MoCA has received more than 10,000 artists, adding a hands-on exhibition through tool maker Gunnar Schonbeck, artist James Turrell and interdisciplinary icon Laurie Anderson. The number of annual visitors increased from 60,000 after the museum opened in 1999 to 300,000. And the museum campus has grown from 200,000 square feet and five buildings to 550,000 square feet and 17 buildings.
“Ultimately, strong and sustainable establishments focus on people, values, shared passions, and a disciplined ethic in painting,” Thompson said. “In any case, MASS MoCA’s long-term opportunities outweigh its achievements to date; however, the next user must realize, with a new perspective, the expanded social and cultural network paintings and the new energy.”