rooftops of the MASS MoCA campus with performances of their trailblazing Roof Piece at 2 and 4:30 p. m. At 3 p. m., MASS MoCA Director Kristy Edmunds talks to Susan Rosenberg, author of Trisha Brown: Choreography as Visual Art. At 5:30 p. m., the party continues with the opening of Vincent Valdez’ s Just a Dream, a multimedia installation that focuses on America at the margins, the artist’ s first major museum survey with 20 years of work, cementing him as one of the most important American painters working today. At 8:30 p. m., groundbreaking rapper, songwriter, musician and poet Saul Williams performs.( See page 28.) On May 25 at 11 a. m., Valdez talks with poet, essayist, and cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib about their love of music, basketball, and storytelling. Steve Locke’ s powerful the fire next time, which opens August 3, focuses on uniquely American forms of violence directed at Black and queer people and includes Locke’ s iconic suspended head often presented with a tongue sticking out, the rainbow sign and signs1-6, featuring satyr heads suspended on pipes.
CONTINUING:
Jeffrey Gibson’ s POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’ RE DIFFERENT fills their signature Building 5 gallery through May 2026 with an immersive, mixed media installation that showcases queer and Indigenous communities. Larger-than-life symbolic ceremonial garments, screening of Two Spirit People( 1992) and Your Spirit Whispers in My Ear( 2024), and new activations in June and August punctuate the exhibit with music that moves mind and body. Afro-Indigenous musician and playwright Martha Redbone offers Song-scapes, June 21 at 1 p. m., paying homage to the Indigenous foundation of American roots music. MX Oops, August 30 at 8 p. m., presents an evening of“ ecstatic aesthetics,” a sound bath that dives into the world of their recent work, UnFiNiShEd aNiMaL, using queer nightlife culture to reveal how cognitive bias connects us all. Alison Pebworth’ s Cultural Apothecary, inspired by the 19th century neurological disorder Americanitis, offers visitors the chance to experience the restorative power of communing with strangers through paintings, a large glowing sculptural heart, and a sip of reparative curatives and elixirs. Williams College Assistant Art Professor Ohan Breiding’ s Belly of a Glacier connects the 2019 memorial of the death of Iceland’ s
Okjokull glacier to ongoing practices designed to preserve ice through film and photography, an exhibition presented in collaboration with Williams College Museum of Art five miles down Route 2, whose new building is under construction; through December 14. Randi Malkin Steinberger’ s The Archive of Lost Memories, through June 29, is a collection of found photographs, slides, and tintypes for a window into the lives of the forgotten.( See story on page 80.)
THE MOUNT
2 Plunkett St., Lenox edithwharton. org 413-551-5111
A house museum, cultural center, and public park designed and built by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edith Wharton in 1902, The Mount brings award-winning authors, innovators, and scholars for another spectacular season in a Berkshire venue that’ s hard to beat. The magnificent property opens for the season on May 10 with guided and self-guided tours, and the annual contemporary sculpture show, Sculpture at the Mount, May 24 to October 29, with over 50 acres of forest, gardens, and meadows. The annual summer gala will be held on June 12.
SUMMER AUTHOR SERIES:
THE TRAILBLAZERS brings stories of groundbreaking visionaries who have broken barriers and reshaped the world. Talks are Mondays at 4 p. m. and Tuesdays at 11 a. m. July 7 / 8, Michelle Young, author of The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland( 2025) tells how an unlikely heroine infiltrated Nazi leadership to save treasured masterpieces. July 14 and 15, Andrew Lipman, author of Squanto: A Native Odessey( 2024) explores the life of the man turned legend. July 21 and 22, Susan Morrison, author of LORNE: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live( 2025) takes readers behind the scenes of Lorne Michaels ' relentless, 50-year journey to build and sustain Saturday Night Live. July 28 and 29, Tess Chakkalakal, author of A Matter of Complexion: The Life and Fictions of Charles W. Chesnutt( 2025), talks about the first comprehensive biography of the Black writer who broke into an all-white literary establishment.
August 4 and 5, Dava Sobel, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit the Path for Women in Science( 2024), talks about her bestselling book that describes how Marie Curie was equally passionate outside the lab as professor of physics at the Sorbonne, mother, World War I X-ray technician, and friend to Albert Einstein. August 11 and 12, Laurence Bergeen, author of Jules Verne and the Invention of the Future( 2025), talks about this father of science fiction’ s enduring legacy as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. August 18 and 19, Amy Reading, author of The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker( 2024), creates a deeply intimate portrait of the ways that White nurtured a momentous amount of literary talent that propelled writers to great literary heights, while reinventing the role of editor.
August 25 and 26, Elyse Graham, author of Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II.
IN CONVERSATION WITH ANDRÉ BERNARD. Talks begin at 5 p. m.
June 26, Adam Gopnik, whose fiction, criticism, book reviews, essays, and foreign correspondence have helped define the voice of The New Yorker. His most recent book, All That Happiness Is( 2024) explores society ' s obsession with achievement. July 10, Robert A. Caro, legendary historian and Pulitzer Prize – winning author of The Years of Lyndon Johnson( a biography of Lyndon B. Johnson published in four volumes, with the fifth and final volume now being written) and The Power Broker. July 17, Danzy Senna, author of Colored Television( 2024) and six previous books, including Caucasia( 1999), New People and memoir, Where Did You Sleep Last Night?. July 31, Jayne Anne Philips, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist of Night Watch( 2023) who also wrote Black Tickets, Fast Lanes, Machine Dreams, Shelter, MotherKind, Lark and Termite, and Quiet Del. August 7, Susan Glasser and Peter Baker, authors of The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021( 2022) offer insights on the national political climate, the role of journalism, and the state of global affairs. August 21, Judy Collins, Grammy ® Award-winning singer-songwriter and author talks about her just-released book, Sometimes It’ s Heaven: Poems of Love, Loss, and Redemption( 2025), and other subjects.
May / June 2025 BERKSHIRE MAGAZINE // 73