The Nanjing Particles

Boy, MASS MoCA never disappoints! For the last three years, when I go to Vermont, I take a day to drive back down to North Adams, Mass, to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Every year there are the most amazing works of art by a variety of artists. This year one of the most astounding was an exhibit called "The Nanjing Particles." The artist, Simon Starling, took a bit of a photographic print, and looked at it with an electron microscope and found two grains of silver in the fragment, and then made two sculptures in stainless steel that are something like a million times larger than the original silver grains. And to display these works of art in this venue can only enhance the works. The huge banks of windows and large areas make this such an astounding space - this museum was built in the former Sprague capacitor factory buildings. The decision to turn this former plant into this museum was just brilliant!