The Bounty of the Berkshires’ Summertime Art Attractions

Like urbanites often do, my husband and I spent years dreaming of an escape to rural, forested solitude. But we are both visual artists, so this dream gave us pause—how could we leave our beloved urban centers? As we debated, one place lingered in our minds: the Berkshires. We visited in 2015 and discovered that this slice of Western Massachusetts is essentially a cultural hotspot embedded in the woods. Finally, in 2022, after two decades in Chicago and another four years in Detroit for my graduate study (and a pandemic), we leapt. We’ve been here in the Berkshires, specifically in North Adams, for a little more than three years now. To our surprise, our cultural and nature-based lives have never been more abundant. We hoped it would be this way, but we are still surprised at all the ways it exceeds our expectations every week. Ballet, concerts, dance, theater, major visual art exhibitions at three world-class museums, galleries that range from DIY to legendary…it’s remarkable. And you could hike, bike, or kayak to a lot of these events, if you wanted. The Appalachian Trail cuts through our town, but hundreds of miles of other trails and waterways run through the Berkshires. And, for the urbanites still in our hearts, we are only three hours from both Boston and NYC.

This specific equation of art + culture + proximity draws an estimated four million visitors through our county from April to the end of October. It also drew the founders of the Arrival Art Fair to North Adams.

Arrival launches its inaugural fair this June 13–15 at TOURISTS, an art hotel that draws inspiration from the history of America’s iconic motorway lodges. The Appalachian Trail runs through the property, and all the hotel’s oversized windows look out into the woods and just beyond to the adjacent Hoosic River. On any regular day, TOURISTS offers incredible cocktails, a free concert series called “Sing for Your Slumber,” trails, outdoor sculpture experiences, and more. All this to say it’s a perfect environment in which to reimagine the art fair experience as a less frantic, more community- and setting-specific event. Organized by an impressive cohort of curatorial ambassadors, the fair will feature more than thirty galleries and art spaces from across the country that will set up shop inside the hotel’s wood-clad rooms. Auxiliary programming and public talks will occur at various sites, including the Hotel Downstreet in downtown North Adams, the Clark Art Institute in nearby Williamstown, and MASS MoCA.

Whether or not Arrival is the occasion for a Berkshires jaunt, the region is big and full of diverse cultural programming, food, and natural experiences. So here’s our short to-do list for a weekend in Western Mass.

WHILE IN NORTH ADAMS

Mass MoCA’s sixteen-acre campus offers a truly remarkable visual and performing arts experience. Some exhibitions on view include “Jeffrey Gibson: Power Full Because We’re Different,” a newly commissioned immersive installation exploring both the terms and the experiences of Indigenous gender and spiritual identities. Gibson, who is based in Hudson, NY, is fresh from his highly celebrated exhibition at the Venice Biennale, where he represented the United States. The exhibition is a colorful and joyfully queer antidote to our current political climate. “Vincent Valdez: Just a Dream…” is the artist’s first major museum survey and explores more than twenty years of chronicling America at the margins, including subjects such as boxing, border walls, greed, the Ku Klux Klan, and more. Some exhibitions are only open to the public in summer months, including a long-term Anselm Kiefer exhibition housed in its own building.

While at the museum, take time to linger in one of my favorite places, the Research & Development Store. R & D is a highly curated gallery-meets-retail space featuring novel, quirky, and sophisticated books and limited-edition art. It also hosts leading artistic and literary figures in the store’s reading series. But R & D isn’t my only favorite bookstore in the Berkshires. The Bear & Bee Bookshop is a social justice bookstore featuring new and used titles. It has a wonderful selection of queer, feminist, environmental, and sci-fi selections, many of which carry on its social justice theme. After the Bear & Bee, make the few-minute stroll over to Eagle Street for pie at the newly opened Steeple City Social bakery and bar and hot or iced tea at Heart’s Pace, and explore artist-run spaces like Center of Gravity residency/gallery and Installation Space.

As for the outdoors, the Clark Art Institute will present sculptures and installations by seven world-renowned artists across its 140-acre campus starting June 28 as part of its second annual “Ground/Work” exhibition. The work on view is free and open twenty-four hours a day—midnight art viewing by moonlight options abound. But if a break from art is necessary at this point, consider the Cascades Trail for a shorter hike. The hemlock-beech forest provides canopy as the trail winds alongside a babbling brook. Hikers can stop where the brook bisects the trail, but I recommend wading into the water or rock-hopping to carry on to the trail’s namesake cascade waterfall. There is a slight elevation with some outcroppings to navigate, but it’s a family favorite and even unseasoned hikers can make the approximately seventy-five-minute loop. For a multi-trail trek that can be done in sixty minutes or several hours, depending on the route, consider Hopkins Memorial Forest in neighboring Williamstown (and just up the road from the Clark). Hopkins is a 2,600-acre reserve that stretches into New York and Vermont. There are fewer than 100 research forests in the United States, and Hopkins is additionally unusual in that it is managed by the Williams College Zilkha Center for the Environment to facilitate research, teaching, and monitoring forest resources through long-term ecological research.

BEYOND NAMA

I’ll begin with a note to please forgive my visual art bias. If theater, music, or dance is your art form, the Berkshires will provide. But in keeping with my area of expertise, I will stick with visual art and also recommend The Mount in Lenox. The Mount was author Edith Wharton’s home and now is a National Historic Landmark and cultural center. “Sculpture at The Mount” is an annual juried exhibition of contemporary sculpture installed across fifty acres of forest, gardens, and meadows. This year’s theme is “Movement” and was guest curated by Sarah Montross, museum director and chief curator of deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum.

The exhibition will feature twenty-two artists, including Sergei Isupov and Rachel Hayes. Isupov, an internationally renowned and locally beloved sculptor, will show his ongoing ceramic installation Sculpture in the Trees. The installation highlights what this Ukrainian/Estonian artist is most known for: animals and human/animal hybrids in surreal situations, colors, and poses. Hayes, who counts a Joan Mitchell award among her many recognitions, will install her work Color Story between tree branches across the grounds of The Mount. Made from various industrial textiles such as nylon flag fabric, repurposed trampoline netting, construction netting, nylon webbing, and UV thread, the compositions are modernist, architectural, and responsive to the natural environment. “Movement” will be on view all season long.

The Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge is hosting the exhibition “DayDream,” curated by James Salomon. The show’s lineup is powerful and includes Will Cotton, Salvador Dalí, Ellsworth Kelly, Annie Leibovitz, Yoko Ono, and many more from June 6 through August 11 inside the galleries. Nearby in Pittsfield, Hancock Shaker Village will host seven art exhibitions across their grounds with artists including Aaron Copland, Maria Molteni, Steve Careau, Laura Christensen, and others.

There’s a host of delicious places to eat across the Berkshires, but three immediately jump to mind. While in North Adams, check out European comfort food experts Door Prize. The locally beloved duo reopen in May at their new location at Hotel Downstreet for brunch and dinner. While traveling through South County, Rubi’s in Great Barrington is a grilled cheese shop in the back of Rubiner’s Cheesemongers; both are located in an old bank building. The incredible selection of cheese is flanked by pairings of jams, chocolates, pickled delights, and more. And the sandwiches are just about perfect. The nearly new Bluebird & Co. in Hancock is a delight of style and taste, a Midcentury-meets-cabin aesthetic that is a great match for their cocktails and small-but-mighty menu.

By no means should this list be considered exhaustive. There are cultural curiosities and marvels tucked into every small village along the way. It might only take eighty minutes to drive the length of the Berkshires, but in season, it would take weeks to see, hear, and experience everything our western stronghold has to offer. While you visit, be sure to ask another local what they love about this place. There’s no shortage of answers and I’m still discovering new things, three years later.