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Mass MoCA announces appointment of new director

Sep 27, 2021 5:45 am

Greta Jochem is reporting for The Berkshire Eagle the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art Foundation board of trustees September 23, announced the appointment of Kristy Edmunds as Mass MoCA's new director. Edmunds currently is the executive and artistic director of UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance. Previously, she was founding executive and artistic director of the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art in Portland, Ore., and artistic director of the Melbourne International Arts Festival. Her appointment is effective in October. “I have been fascinated with Mass MoCA from the second I learned about it decades ago,” Edmunds said in a statement. “What it feels like to experience art in this place is unlike anywhere else. There’s an aliveness charging through the campus itself that manages to honor the past while being in the vivid present, and I have never been there without feeling that I discovered something astonishing. ...It is a tremendous honor to be joining Mass MoCA and supporting this outstanding team of people who maintain a creative pipeline of possibility in one place." After more than 30 years as director, Joseph Thompson announced last summer that he would be stepping down. Tracy Moore has served as interim director and Thompson transitioned to temporary consulting position at the museum in late October 2020. “...From the outset of the selection process, Kristy stood out from other extraordinarily accomplished candidates as someone with interests and aspirations that are deeply aligned with ours,” said Timur Galen, chairman of the Mass MoCA Foundation board of trustees. Read more in The Berkshire Eagle.