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The Arts Intel Report

Joseph Grigely: In What Way Wham? (White Noise and Other Works, 1996–2023)

Aug 30, 2023 – Mar 31, 2024
1040 Mass MoCA Way, North Adams, MA 01247, USA

When Joseph Grigely was 10, he fell down a hill and lost his hearing. From then on, he was completely deaf. He says it was like “watching the world with the sound turned off.” Consequently, Grigely became obsessed with the particularities of human interaction. In the 1990s, he began the series “Conversations With the Hearing,” which consisted of the tattered notes he’d taken during talks with people who didn’t know sign language. For this commission at MASS MoCA, similar notes are plastered across two intersecting oval rooms. The idea is for viewers to experience the ambiguous space between speech and writing. —Elena Clavarino